42 A STUDY ON BOOKLET DYKE, AND OTHERS IN DORSET. 



for which is not very obvious or intelligible ; but I have no doubt 

 may be explained by the fact, that it is easier to raise a vallum 

 of considerable height, by scarping the sloping sides of hills, 

 than by digging a deep trench and thro wing up the soil along the 

 level line of its course. Stukeley makes this observation in 

 repect to Wansdyke ' it makes several right angles to humour 

 the edges of the other hills . . the vallum is always on the 

 South side." * 



I am quite of your opinion that Bockley dyke was never 

 intended to be a defensive work, in the military sense, for it 

 would have been next to an impossibility to defend such an extended 

 frontier ; but, on the other hand, that it was a territorial bound- 

 ary, raised for the purpose of keeping flocks and herds within 

 bounds ; and at the same time presenting a formidable obstacle 

 to any marauding parties who might be urged with predatory 

 designs on them. Last Autumn I made a visit to the Dyke 

 with the express purpose of examining more particularly that 

 remarkable spur which you mention as being connected with it. 

 This spur consists, as you know, of a vallum and ditch extending 

 at right angles to the main work a length of 57 yards, across a 

 strip of the Down-land, and ending in what was formerly a cop- 

 pice, within my own remembrance, but now is cultivated land. 

 There is a sharp declivity into it, which is, no doubt the "dingle" 

 you allude to. I measured and examined this earthwork very 

 particularly, and have no hesitation in saying, that it differs in 

 nothing, save that of being two or three feet lower, from the 

 main work from which it takes its rise : and I believe it to have 

 been made by the same people, at the same time, and for the 

 same purpose, viz., to afford security to their cattle. Indeed it 

 is manifest that they would not be secure without it ; therefore 

 there is no mystery, as it appears to me in respect to its origin 

 and use. The ditch is here on the West side, to protect the 

 pasture on the East. 



Fanciful Etymology has been busy with the names BOCKLEY 

 *Iter Curiosum. Iter vi., p. 142. 



