Book L] THE DEVIL'S DITCH. n 



the vegetable mould ; the rampire was doubtless faced with 

 green sods, and nature has continued the surface of sward to 

 this day. 



About seven miles to the westward, crossing the high 

 road, and running nearly in a parallel line, is another ditch 

 and rampart, called the Fleam Dyke, which may be rendered, 

 from the Saxon, the dyke of flight or refuge (Fleam), as it 

 probably was for the inhabitants of East Anglia, being an 

 obstacle against the assaults of the Mercians. I have not 

 yet had the opportunity of comparing the construction of the 

 Fleam Dyke with that of the Devil's Dyke ; it varies very 

 little in extent from the latter ; it is called also, from the 

 length of its course, the Seven-Mile Dyke. On the inner or 

 eastern side of this work, near the high road, is a considerable 

 tumulus, called in the maps, Matlow Hill. 



I am strongly disposed to think that the Devil's Dyke, 

 and perhaps other lines of entrenchment of a similar character 

 in the neighbourhood, were constructed by the Roman legions 

 at an early period in Britain. Camden enumerates three 

 military dykes in Cambridgeshire besides the Devil's Dyke, 

 the strongest of them all. The Roman forces, after obtaining 

 their first footing in Britain, occupied and colonized some 

 eligible positions in Kent, Middlesex, and Essex ; we find them 

 at the time of the revolt of Boadicea at Camulodunum (Col- 

 chester), Verulamium (St. Alban's), and Londinium (London). 

 The Trinobantes and Iceni were perhaps the first British 

 districts which received the Roman yoke. . . . 



The first mention of the Devil's Dyke in history is found 

 in the Saxon Chronicle under the year 905, which tells us 

 that the land of the East Angles was laid waste between the 

 dyke and the Ouse, as far northward as the fens. The dyke 

 was termed in the Norman period St. Edmunds Dyke, because 

 the jurisdiction of the abbots of Bury St. Edmunds extended 

 so far westward. The description of the dyke by Abbo 

 Floxiacensis, a writer of the tenth century who had visited 

 Britain, as quoted by Camden (edited by Gibson), is remark- 

 able for its brief accuracy. Speaking of East Anglia, he says, 

 that on the west " this province joins to the rest of the island, 



