By the Rev. Preb. W. H. Jones. 345 



road is this, — that the former appears as a ditch with a low mound on 

 each side of it, the dense population which Caesar tells us lived here 

 naturally wearing their lines of communication into hollows — the 

 latter as a mound simply. Is there any difficulty in supposing after 

 all that we have only two works instead of three, and that the 

 Wansdyke was thrown up in many parts on the Roman road, or 

 bank, which preceded it ? It is at least strange, if any work of 

 importance existed here before the Roman road, that no writer 

 notices it ; the more so, as in the Itinerary of Antoninus we have an 

 account of all the stations along its course from Somerset to Berk- 

 shire — Aquae Solis — Verlucio — Cunetio — Spinae. 



But even admitting that there is some truth in the opinions I am 

 discussing, and that there was a Belgic Dyke, on the line of what 

 was afterwards called Wansdyke, existing before ever the Romans 

 set foot in our country, it would be by no means inconsistent to 

 contend, that the enlargement of this dyke, and its utilization as a 

 boundary-line, might be the work of the English settlers in the 

 fifth and following century. I confess that I incline much to 

 Camden's opinion that at one time, at all events, Wansdyke was the 

 northern boundary of the conquests of the West Saxons. Many 

 of the contests in its neighbourhood were probably caused by disputes 

 on the subject of boundaries. Why may it not have been dug — or, 

 if previously existing, enlarged — and constituted as a boundary-line, 

 as the chiefs of the West Saxons succeeded in obtaining a hold of 

 the country up to that point ? We have historical records of OfFa, 

 King of Mercia, (A.D. 755 — 792), having caused a large dyke, 

 still called by his name, to be dug, separating his kingdom from 

 Wales. Why may not a precedent for that great work have been 

 set some two hundred years previously in Wansdyke ? 



The sum of what has been written in this paper amounts to 

 this: — 



fa) That there are in Wilts ancient dykes of various ages and 

 constructed for various purposes; that the fragments of them which 

 we find in different parts of our county may, by means of the des- 

 criptions in charters, be so connected together, as to lead us to believe 

 that they were in all some five in number ; and that the principal 



