By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 339 



the name of Kinwardstone to this Hundred in the county of Wilts. 



Sir R. C. Hoare continues : — " A further object for the antiquary 

 occurs in this curve near a small alehouse called ' Scot's Poor. ' A 

 large bank and foss vulgarly called Wansdyke which the Roman 

 causeway crosses/'' 



The " large bank and foss " are called Wansditch in Dury's Map 

 of Wilts, " erroneously/' says Sir R. C. Hoare (Ancient Wilts, 

 Part I., p. 187), but as the course of Wansdyke eastward of 

 Savernake Forest is much interrupted, becomes very indistinct, and 

 breaks off altogether on the hill above Shalbourn, it is hardly safe 

 to say of any bank and foss that may be met in this district, that it 

 is no part of Wansdyke. The bank at Scots Poor, however, seems 

 to have been a branch of it : for Sir Richard, in a note to his work, 1 

 adds that, at the time of his visit, the public-house was then kept 

 by a man who had once been a shepherd and had made himself 

 acquainted with the numerous dykes and banks of that neighbourhood; 

 and that this man had traced the Scots Poor bank at intervals from 

 Silchester to Old Sarum and that it had several branches. Sir 

 Richard further adds that in a subsequent excursion he had followed 

 this bank and ditch for many miles till he found it united with the 

 real Wansdyke. 



All the way along, and in every direction, passing by Buddesden 

 and the Collingbournes, are marks of British settlement, barrows, 

 camps, and dykes ; memorials of ancient occupation, fighting, and 

 burial. It is impossible to make clear history of these monuments : 

 for none has come down to us. An ancient author reports that 

 when Alexander the Great, traversing Asia Minor in the course of 

 his conquests, arrived at the great mound called The Tomb of 

 Achilles, on the promontory of Sigeum, he exclaimed, " Oh fortunate 

 young hero, in having had a Homer to celebrate your valour " : but 

 when we stand upon our great Wiltshire mounds, such, for instance, 

 as Silbury, near Marlborough, which, for anything we know, may 

 cover the remains of some Wiltshire hero, no less valiant than the 

 son of Peleus, our exclamation, the reverse of Alexander's, can only 



1 "Ancient Wilts, Eoman Period," p. 69. 



