ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



east. Flanking the county on the north-west stretches an expanse of lias 

 formation with an average breadth of twenty miles, parting the oolite on 

 the south from the new red sandstone on the north ; while Huntingdon- 

 shire and north Bedfordshire form a similar band of Oxford clay between 

 the Nene valley and the chalk range of the Chilterns. With its chain 

 of earthworks commanding all approaches from the Cherwell valley, and 

 with its eastern extremity protected by the Fens, Northamptonshire 

 would thus be materially cut off from its neighbours. But Teutonic 

 enterprise would only be temporarily checked by such impediments 

 as these, and the Roman roads would ere long bring into conflict settlers 

 from north and south, Anglians and Saxons, on the debatable land 

 between the Welland and the Nene. At least in the southern part of the 

 county the relics from the cemeteries show a certain mingling of races 

 which is quite in accordance with history. 



It was in the year 1889 that Grimsbury, a hamlet of Banbury, was 

 severed from Northamptonshire, but its name and situation suggest an 

 earlier political connection with the upper valley of the Cherwell, now 

 included in Oxfordshire. Whatever the derivation may be, the root- 

 word is to be found under various forms such as Grimes Ditch, Grim's 

 Dike and Graham's Ditch in many parts of Britain. Several of these 

 landmarks date from a very early period, and some occur precisely on 

 the line of county boundaries ; but perhaps the most instructive parallel 

 is on the border of Hampshire at the north-west angle of the New 

 Forest, where there is reason to think that the Romano-British inhabi- 

 tants of Wiltshire were able for a considerable period to stem the tide of 

 barbarian invasion along the valley of the Salisbury Avon. 



The name of Grimsbury can only have been bestowed by a Teutonic 

 people, and there seems little against the theory that the hamlet marks 

 an ancient boundary between the West Saxons of Oxfordshire and 

 Buckinghamshire on the one hand, and on the other the Romanized 

 Britons, who must have inhabited parts of Northamptonshire in consider- 

 able numbers during and after the Roman period. 



If then Grimsbury may be regarded as an outpost of the tribe or 

 tribes who occupied most of the country between the Cotswolds and the 

 Chilterns in the sixth century, the question arises whether it is possible 

 to fix the period at which that stronghold ceased to mark a boundary. 

 Once the general accuracy of the entry under 571 is conceded, it is possi- 

 ble to connect the foundation of Grimsbury with the victory at Bedford; 

 but a consideration of the remains in the neighbouring parts of North- 

 amptonshire renders it probable that within a century from that date 

 West- Saxon adventurers had not only penetrated to the Watling Street 

 and perhaps ascended the Tove valley from the south-east, but had been 

 joined and perhaps in their turn overwhelmed by a rival Anglian tribe 

 either from the north or east. Due allowance must indeed be made for 

 the distribution of characteristic objects in the course of trade, but in the 

 general decay that set in on the withdrawal of the legions, commerce 

 fared no better than government or education. It is consequently not 



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