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The Ancient Wiltshire Dyhes. 



us, indicate the greatest antiquity, The most western portion 

 which remains can be traced from Boreham Down, in the north 

 part of Warminster parish ; thence it runs along till it comes 

 to Knook Castle, the two ancient encampments of Battlesbury and 

 Scratchbury being about two miles to the south of it. Thence it 

 goes on to within a couple of miles of Tilshead, and in its course 

 turns at right angles to avoid, as it would seem, interfering with 

 what is now called the Tilshead Long Barrow. Again you trace it 

 just above what is called Silver Barrow (a name corrupted from 

 Sel-berg, i.e., great barrow) ; here it diverges to the north, and you 

 trace it again close by Ell Barrow, that is, eald-berg (= old barrow), 

 and across Compton Down. Again it goes northward, and you 

 meet with it close by Chisenbury Camp and Lidbury Camp, and it 

 reaches what are called the Twin Barrows, close by Combe HilL 

 It would seem no unlikely conclusion that it then went on to Sidbury, 

 an ancient encampment in the parish of North Tidworth ; but from 

 this we cannot, as far as I know, trace it, for the Amesbury bounds 

 mentioned by Dr. Guest are certainly too far from it to be considered 

 as portions of it. An incidental proof of this Old Dyke having 

 been a boundary -line seems to be given to us in the name of one of 

 the parishes close by it — I mean Imber. It was written Im-mere till 

 within two hundred years. This is a corruption of Ge-mcere, which 

 means " the boundary/'' Moreover, the names of places in its im- 

 mediate neighbourhood, many of them having in them the Celtic 

 rather than Teutonic element, incidentally prove its antiquity, e.g. 

 Knook, Chittern, Qrcheston, Up- Avon, Combe Hill. My opinion 

 is clearly that this is a very early, possibly a Belgic, work, not so 

 ancient it may be as Bokerly, but still probably dug originally 

 more than two thousand years ago, or some two hundred years 

 before the Christian era. 



Y. — Wansdyke. This is the greatest of all the Wiltshire 

 Dykes. This magnificent earthwork reached from the Bristol 

 Channel, across Somerset and Wilts, to the woodlands of Berkshire. 

 Dr. Guest tells us that "the general consent of our antiquaries 

 has fixed on Wansdyke as the last of the Belgic boundaries." 

 What others have said about this great dyke, while it to a certain 



