COURSE OF THE WANSDYKE. 19 



may be doing service to this Society by bringing portions 

 of it before them, and here I should suggest that our 

 Brethren of the Wilts Society should also take up the 

 subject of Wansdyke, and carefully record in tbeir Journal 

 the particulars relating to their own county, reprinting so 

 niuch of R. C. Hoare's account as may be necessary to 

 elucidate the subject. 



Speaking of Wansdyke, Collinson says of the point 

 where it enters Soinersetshire, " it meets the same mean- 

 dering river (Avon) at Bathampton, where it enters the 

 N. W. portion of the Belgic territories. Its course is then 

 continued over Ciaverton Dovvn to Prior Park, English 

 Combe, Stanton Prior, Publow, Norton, Long Ashton, 

 and terminates at the Severn Sea, near the ancient port of 

 Portishead," vol. i. p. 22. At p. 170, he says, " it runs to 

 Publow, and Belluton, (written Beigeton in Doomsday 

 Book, i. e. Belgarum oppidum)." He notices it again in vol. 

 iL, p. 423, and again vol. iii., p. 140, where a circumstantial 

 report of its westward course towards the Severn is to 

 be found. Speaking of the hundred of Portbury, he 

 says, "To this remote coi'ner tends that cgrcgious bound- 

 ary of the Belgic warriors called Wansdyke, its course is 

 directed hither from the ancient fortress of Maes Knoll, in 

 the tything of Norton Hautville, south-eastward, whose 

 lofty western rampart seems to have been a post of Obser- 

 vation for all these parts. Descending the hill it crosses 

 High-ridge common where its track is still visible, and 

 eoon after thwarting the Great Western road from Bristol 

 to Bridgwater, forms by its vallum a deep narrovv lane, 

 overhung with wood and briars, leading to Yanley-street, 

 in the parish of Long Ashton." From Yanley it traverses 

 the meadows to a lane anciently denominated Wondes- 

 ditch-lane, as appears from a deed, which he quotes, and to 



