112 The Early History of the tipper Wylye Valley. 



building stone. Probably some evening when the harvest was in 

 and the oxen were ploughing, the English fell upon them and slew 

 the servants with the edge of the sword. Some perished in the 

 defence, and as the smoke went up from the homestead, the 

 survivors fled to make a last and fruitless stand on the brow of 

 Battlesbury, a name which may preserve the memory of the 

 invasion. 



II. — Early English Times. 

 The coming of the English can still be read plainly in the place- 

 names. Dr. Guest has with great probability traced out the line of 

 their advance. He argues that after the battle of the Mons 

 Badonicus in 520 A.D. (probab]y Badbury, in Dorset), the Upper 

 Wylye Valley was still British, not yet English, and that it did 

 not become English till the capture of Bath in 577, the name 

 " Mere " pointing to the boundary between the two peoples. We 

 shall probably be right in dating the English advance shortly after 

 the fall of Old Sarum in 552 ; some may have advanced north-west 

 as far as the " Divisfe " (" border ") Devizes, 1 some south-west to 

 " Mere." "We are concerned here with the western line of advance. 

 When the fall of Old Sarum left the country open to them, they 

 advanced probably along the ridge leading west, by the well-marked 

 track through Groveley Wood, aud thence they would descend off 

 the spurs into the Wylye Valley. The advance was along the 

 southern rather than the northern height above the river, because 

 most of the settlements are on the south bank of the stream. In 

 fact, they were passing through a settled and cultivated district, 

 as can still be seen on the spurs of the hills by Stockton onwards ; 

 and it is likely that they would follow the traces of the former 

 occupants, and come down into the valley at various points. Of 

 the eleven places whose name ends in -ton, between Bapton and 

 Norton, seven stand on the south bank of the stream ; two only 

 stand entirely on the north, Fisherton and Ashton ; and of the two 

 remaining, Upton (originally Ubban-ton) stretches to the southern 

 slopes of the valley, while Norton joins Sutton, one settlement 



1 Devizes, because the first name would be " ad Divisa*. Compare " ad 

 episcopi arbores," on p. 116. 



