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CHAPTER VII. 
WiMBLEDON AND Wanpsworta 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 56%, 
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 Cesar’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 
