COURSE OF TUE WANSDYKE. 15 



Long Ashton, he liad every opportunity of knowing what 

 traccs of it werc existing in his time. Sir 11. C. 

 Hoare was able to discern scarce any vestige of it in the 

 valuable survey which lie caused to be made, and in a long 

 examination which I made in Company with a friend and a 

 most indefatigable investigator of antient earthworks, we 

 could not find any mark of its former existence. 



Mr. Leman, however, in a note contained in his copy of 

 Stukeley's Itinerary, which he bequeathed to the Bath 

 Literary and Scientific Institution, with other valuable 

 works containing his annotations, fixes the termination of 

 Wansdyke at Stokesley Camp, one of the two camps 

 which crown the precipice above the Avon, on the Somer- 

 set side, directly opposite the Observatory at Clifton. Of 

 this camp he says, (after descsibing Bowre walls, its twin 

 companion in respect to Situation) " The second called 

 Stokesleigh Camp has been altered by the Saxons, being 

 the head of their celebrated Wansdyke." These import- 

 ant works guarding the passage of the Avon, secm to fix 

 this as a very likely termination for the great Belgic 

 boundary line. The camps protecting the entrance to the 

 port of Bristol are of very antient, but of veiy different 

 dates. 



" Bowre walls," says Mr. Leman, " remains in its 

 original state, and cxactly resembles the fortified port of 

 Caractacus described by Tacitus." " Montibus arduis, et 

 si qua clementer accedi poterant, in modum valli saxa 

 praestruit : et prajfluebat amnis vado incerto." Tac. Lib. 

 Ann : xii. 33. 



This he seems to consider the oldest camp. The second 

 called Stokesleigh, he regards as altered at a later period, 

 and the third on the Glouccstcr side, on Clifton Down, 



