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CHAPTER VII. 



Wimbledon and Wandsworth Commons. 



In the same year, 1871, in which the Plumstead and 

 Tooting* cases were decided, final settlements were 

 arrived at in respect of Wimbledon and Wandsworth 

 Commons, about which litigation had unfortunately 

 arisen. Of the Commons within easy reach of the 

 Metropolis, none is better known or more appreciated 

 by Londoners than that of Wimbledon, and none 

 has a more interesting past history. It is believed 

 by antiquarians to have been the battle-field described 

 by early Saxon writers as " Wibbandun," where 

 Ceaulin, King of the West Saxons, attacked and 

 defeated Ethelbert, King of Kent, in the year 568, 

 and where Oslac and Cnebba, two of Ethelbert's 

 generals, were killed. This conjecture, says Mr. 

 Manning, is supported by the name of an ancient 

 circular camp in an adjoining field, which was formerly 

 part of the Common, and which, Mr. Camden says, was 

 in his time called Bensbury, a natural abbreviation 

 of Cnebbensbury. This earth-work is, or rather was 

 recently, known as Caesar's Camp, for the vandal, who 

 owned it, did his best, a few years ago, to obliterate 

 all traces of it by levelling its banks. The Common 

 was the scene in modern times of many encounters of a 

 different character. The Duke of York here fought his 



