110 The Early History of the Upper Wylye Valley. 



I. — Bkitish and Eomano-British times. 



To take a range slightly beyond this valley, it is evident to 

 anyone who stands on the ridge of hills that run from Maiden 

 Bradley to Wylye, that it was the home of a large population from 

 very ancient times. These downs on the south of the valley were 

 even more thickly populated than those on the northern side, partly 

 because they are more inaccessible, and partly because there was 

 better hunting-ground near. This populous character is shown 

 not only by the so-called " camps," or " castles," which abound, 

 but also by the settlements, and by the round barrows, which are 

 to be found in the valleys as well as on the hills — for example, in 

 the meadows of Bishopstrow, Norton, Sutton, Sherrington, the hill 

 settlements at Knook and Stockton, and the settlements in the 

 hill and valley at Hill Deverill. And not far off are the lake- 

 dwellings at Glastonbury. The language of this people has left 

 its traces in the names of hill and river ; Brimsdon, for Brynsdon 

 (bryn=a, height); Pen, also " height," not far off ; Dead Maiden, 

 near, with which may be compared Dead Man, in Cornwall, a 

 corruption of the Celtic dod maen, and Dod post, near Longleat ; 

 while " Maiden " can also be seen in Maiden Bradley, and Maiden 

 Castle, in Dorset ; and at Maedenbeorgh, which appears to have 

 been the old name of MadcliDgton, and in the name of Maedenbeorgh 

 at Sherrington (Hoare, Heytesbury Hundred, p. 235), just as in 

 many other places in England and Scotland. The word probably 

 means " hill with a round top," and has been discussed, but not 

 settled, in the Antiquary for June, August, September, and October, 

 1902, and March, 1903. . Dever-el 1 is certainly from the common root 

 "dev"= water, of which a good example is Deveron, in Aberdeenshire, 

 and the Dives, in Normandy. The names of rivers never change, and 

 those of hills hardly ever. 2 The inhabitants were largely Belgic. 

 They had advanced over the district in successive waves, and 



1 There is no connection with the name D'Evreux, which was suggested as 

 possible in Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xxviii., p. 236. The " Koll of Battle 

 Abbey" is a transparent and grotesque forgery" says Freeman {History of 

 Sicily, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 468). 



2 Freeman, History of Sicily, i., 83. 



