From "Salopia Antiqua" by Charles Henry Hartshorne, 1841 (pub. J. W. Parker)*
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On the Eastern side, the DEVIL'S DITCH is eighteen feet above the average level of the subjacent country: on the Western, upon which side is the fosse, it is as much as thirty feet. The width, taken across the summit of this huge mound, is twelve feet. The width of the Ditch is twenty feet: it is at present eight feet deep, and was originally perhaps two more. The entire length of the inclination of the sides of the vallum and fosse, are for the former, on the Eastern side, thirty feet; on the Western side, forty-six. The slope of the Ditch bank on the Western side of the fosse, is seventeen. Judging from sections made at different parts, it does not appear to have varied more in its original state, than two feet; and the same may be said of the other Ditches. From this it would seem, that any force having once obtained possession of the DEVIL'S DITCH, could easily retain it, as well by reason of its precipitous character, aided by the depth and width of the fosse at its base, as from the circumstance, that an assault could not readily be made upon it without observation.
(These measures were made nearly midway between Reach, vulgo dictum Roach, and the Burwell road from Swaffham. A labourer on the spot described the DEVIL'S DITCH to me, as being "a rare bit o' work when it was first hulled up".)
The DEVIL'S DITCH runs in a direct line for seven miles and a quarter. It commences at Reach, and terminates at Camois Hall near Ditton. The course of it lies from the North East to the South West. It is most perfect for the first mile and a half from Reach. At the end of the first mile from its North Eastern extremity, it is cut through by the road which leads from Swaffham Prior to Burwell. From this road it goes on in a considerable degree of preservation for a mile and three quarters, when it is again cut through by another called Running Gap, which communicates immediately with the Four mile Race Course on Newmarket Heath. About a quarter of a mile further on, Stable Gap makes another sectional cut through it; and before it reaches the high turnpike road leading from Newmarket to Cambridge, which is about a mile distant from this latter gap, two other sections are made through it by Wall Gap, and Cambridge Gap. It is then cut through by the ICKNIELD STREET, and becomes somewhat diminished, continuing so for upwards of a mile, when the road communicating betwixt Newmarket and Dullingham, makes a seventh section through it. Here it is tolerably perfect till it reaches Stetchworth Park (there is an encampment here, which seems from its rectangularity, to be Roman), where the last cutting is made through it; and we find no farther traces of it when we have pursued it to Camois Hall.
The earliest notice made of this extraordinary work is by Matthew of Westminster, who states that in the year 902, Edward pursued Aethelwald who had induced East Anglia to break the peace, and fought with him betwixt the two DYKES OF ST. EDMUND, where on the part of the Danes were slain Eohrie their king, and Aethelwald who had instigated them to revolt. There was great slaughter on both sides, but chiefly on the part of the Danes, though they kept possession of the field of battle. Edward, however, infested the country with his troops and laid it waste from the DEVIL'S DITCH to the Ouse, and even as far as Northumberland.
Canute declared it a prohibitory line in the year 1021, and commanded that the king's purveyors should not approach nearer than that barrier towards Bury St Edmunds, where he had richly endowed a monastery to expiate in some degree for the death of Edmund, who was treacherously murdered by Edric in 1016.
I am inclined to think that the other DITCH which is alluded to, is that now having the names of FLEAM DYKE and BALSHAM DYKE, for they are one and the same work, though bearing different titles at each extremity. As respects the relative priority of their construction, it may be inferred that the Devil's Ditch, is the earlier work, from its being nearer the coast. There is, however, so much uncertainty about every thing British, and so little historical reference can be made to this early period, that we have nothing better than our own conjectures to furnish illustration. We seek for light amid the greatest darkness whilst describing the works under notice, and can therefore only offer theories, instead of facts to guide the enquirer. His own sagacity will lead him readily to detect our fallacies, for fallacies must always be inherent to opinions which have no better foundation than mere conjecture to rest upon.
The average line of FLEAM DYKE is from North East to South West, and it is situated six miles South West of the former. It begins at Fen Ditton (Ditch-town) and the first appearance of it is at a barn just on the Quy side of the village. The present road to Quy from Ditton is on the vallum of the dyke, the top of which has been thrown into the fosse to make the road sufficiently broad. Where the Ditton and Quy road joins the Newmarket and Cambridge road, near Quy Water and Fen, we lose it; but find it again about half a mile West of Great Wilbraham, whence it runs directly South, alongside some fenny ground to a point half a mile South East of Fulbourn, but this part of the vallum is hardly discernible, from having been spread upon the land. Near Fulbourn it rises in its pristine state, and continues in a straight line, uninterrupted, unless by the small gaps cut in it South East, to within a quarter of a mile of Balsham. Between Fulbourn and Dungate it crosses the ICKNIELD WAY, near the Tumulus at MUTLOW HILL. Towards Balsham it has been much abraded. Its fosse is on the same side as that of the DEVIL'S DYKE. This boundary or defence extends nine and a quarter miles.
Both of these DITCHES, I imagine, to have been constructed anterior to the Roman invasion of Great Britain. The Belgae made seven in Wiltshire, and Celtic or Continental tribes might also have formed these.
Etymology, which often gives great assistance in clearing up what is obscure, does not afford us any light here. When resolved into the A. Saxon, FLEAM DYKE signifies Flight Dyke. If this imports anything, it looks to the expulsion of the Mercians hence, after the conflict they had sustained with the East Anglians and the Danes. But we are still left in utter ignorance of what occasioned the works to be planned.
In passing, we may remark the singular fact of these DITCHES, being generally found running parallel to each other. OFFA'S DYKE runs parallel to WATT'S DYKE; FLEAM DYKE parallel to the DEVIL'S DITCH, whilst several of the WILTSHIRE DITCHES are conformable to the same rule. Thus, if a straight line be drawn Northward from the Southern coast of England, about Dorsetshire and Hampshire, only thirty miles into land, it would cut through the curve of no fewer than seven of these boundaries successively circulating one beyond the other. All these seven valla describe the most desultory track, but proceed in windings nearly parallel; a proof of their reference to each other, and that the Aboriginal Britons did not suffer the invaders to advance with any degree of precipitation.
A third DITCH in Cambridgeshire, is PAMPISFORD DITCH, about a mile South of Bourn Bridge, lying upon declining ground between Abington Wood and Pampisford, pointing towards Cambridge: towards the middle it has been filled up for the ICKNIELD WAY to pass over it, which shews it to be older than the road. It has no bank on either side, and is almost destroyed. It now begins on the ICKNIELD WAY, between Pampisford and Bourn Bridge, running South East by South for about two miles towards Hildersham Wood. The vallum has been spread on the land, but it was on the same side as that of the other DYKES. It is nearly parallel to FLEAM DYKE, and distant four miles and a half. This must be the ditch mentioned by Camden, as running from Hinxton East towards Horseheath for five miles together. He probably never visited it. This ditch, like FLEAM DYKE and the DEVIL'S DITCH, extends from the woods to flat soft land.
BRENT DYKE runs North North West and South South East. It begins at "the springs" in Foulmire Common (a fen) and continues up the hill to a spot where a track-way (apparently ancient) crosses it. Hence it is a stronger work throughout, although much mutilated. It crosses the ICKNIELD WAY and a brook at the same spot, and from this point is only just traceable for the next two miles and a quarter, up the hill to Heydon in Essex, beyond which the country is woody. Here all trace of it is lost, and it does not appear ever to have extended farther. The ditch has the vallum on the same side as the others, namely on the North East, or Norfolk side. Its whole course is about three miles and three quarters, and is nearly parallel to PAMPISFORD DYKE distant six miles and a quarter.
The Ordnance Survey points out a DEVIL'S DYKE in Norfolk, beginning on Brandon River and going due North visibly for four miles and a half to Cranwich Heys, leaving Cranwich a quarter of a mile to the West. A little above Caldecote, eight miles North of the commencement, it is again perceptible for three miles, running to Narborough. The high bank is on the Western side.
Another DEVIL'S DYKE in the same county begins at Hall Green, and points for a mile and a half towards Mileham, the highest bank being on the East side. This appears to be connected with the road through Shereford, going due North through the park to Holkham, and terminating at the circular camp of BURROW HILL, to the West of Wells on the Sea.
There are still other DITCHES, both in Dorsetshire and in Oxfordshire, which ought to be mentioned, and in doing so I shall in part make use of the account of the elegant historian of Kiddington, in the latter county, to make them familiar to the reader. COMBS DITCH, says he, is one of the seven Celtic boundaries and abuts at one end on the river Alan by Blandford, and on the other on the river Bere, both in Dorsetshire. WANSDYKE is believed to be flanked by the Tees about Andover in Hampshire, and by the Avon near Bristol. In the same manner, to mention no more instances, the boundary at Kiddington runs from the borders of the Glymm in Blenheim Park, yet with many an intricate digression, to the Evenlode, on the Eastern side of Blandford Park.
A British or Celtic rampart, fresh and prominent, runs North and South at right angles over the Roman road to FARNHAM CASTLE in Surrey, originally a Roman fortress, bearing on the North to the hamlet of Chilland and the river Ichen, about five miles from the East gate of the city of Winchester.
Again, AVESDITCH or OFFA'S DITCH in Oxfordshire, was drawn through that county about the year 778 as a partition between the Mercian and West Saxon kingdoms, and may be still traced near Ardley, Middleton Stoney, Northbrook, Hey ford, and Kirtleton.
Thus far the printed authority. We will now come to a description of the present state of the ditch in question, which I owe to the kindness of Sir Henry Dryden, Bart. who visited it this summer. It bears in the Ordnance Survey the several names of ASHBANK, WATTLEBANK, and AVESDITCH. It commences at PLOUGHLEY HILL, close to Souldern in the county of Oxford, and after trending nearly seven miles with a gentle degree of curvature, it terminates a little North of Kirtlington. It forms the road from PLOUGHLEY HILL to Fritwell, and now bears little resemblance to a vallum or fosse. At intervals, a slightly raised bank of about fourteen feet across, runs parallel at a hundred and fifty yards distant on the East side. After leaving Fritwell it is a road not much used: it is then altogether lost, but soon found again in a large gorse about two miles and three quarters from PLOUGHLEY HILL, betwixt ARDLEY CASTLE and Middleton Farm. Two or three hundred yards West of the line are some "Remains", consisting of a vallum and fosse, running North and South for about four hundred and forty yards, having the vallum on the East. This vallum and fosse terminate abruptly both ways, and there are not any indications of their having turned at either end. The ground has never been ploughed, but there is nothing to be seen near it, except about forty yards from the ditch side, a pentagonal entrenchment with a vallum and fosse; the former very much depressed, and the latter outwards. Soon after this we get again upon AVESDITCH. For some distance it is planted on each side and presents little appearance of any thing ancient. In about a mile it dwindles into a single track, with green on each side, and is slightly raised. The road presently parts from it, and the bank is found in a ploughed field about ten or eleven feet broad and eighteen inches high. The road, or PORT WAY, again crosses it: at the crossing it appears to have been paved.
The two next pieces are called Ashbank, (from two trees), and here the vallum is about two feet six high, and eighteen feet across. My informant could no where get the names of WATTLEBANK or AVESDITCH recognised by the country people. In one part it is called COLCOT BANK, and that it has been larger than it is at present may be argued from the fact of its dividing the parishes in which Colcot and Middleton Stoney stand. An old person met with on the spot, said that he remembered it --
"much larger than it is at present; that all the earth of the vallum was taken from the West side, so that from that side it was impossible to look over it; that the top of it was seven or eight feet broader, and covered with stones, many cart loads of which had been taken away;"
-- three heaps of these had just been carried away and were lying near the spot.
The frequent recurrence of Ditches in Wiltshire leads us to the supposition, that some of them must have been made to serve the purpose of entrenchments. Of this nature, I conceive, are those bearing the name of HAMSHLLL DITCHES, a little to the North of Wilton: those in the immediate vicinity of CASTERLEY CAMP to the North of Amesbury, -- and some others, which an inspection of the Maps appended to Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, will indicate at a glance. But the DITCHES which are known under the titles of BOKERLEY DITCH, OLD DITCH, VERN DITCH, GRIMS DITCH, and WANSDYKE, were constructed with some other object in view. Such ditches as run for any considerable distance must have been intended for boundary lines, divisions between the territories, or lands of neighbouring chiefs; and the farther these lines were extended, the more powerful we may conceive the people to have been whose kingdoms they severed. Stukeley supposes them to have been formed by the Belgae, as a means of securing the land as they successively conquered it from the Britons, for as they contested it inch by inch, and fought pro arts et focis, for their temples of Stonehenge and Abury, these barriers were thrown up by the Belgae to secure what they had gained. In the instance of WANSDYKE, he thinks differently, and adduces what is always valuable when accompanied by facts, etymology, to support his opinion. WANSDYKE is evidently a boundary line. The length of it shews as much. It formerly extended from the Severn into Berkshire, a distance of eighty miles. Several traces of it are yet visible in Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Berkshire. Sir Richard Hoare traced it from Maes Knoll in Somersetshire, throughout the whole of Wiltshire, to Savernake Forest, and has given a map of its course, to which those readers are referred who desire circumstantial information on the subject. From an engraving, in his interesting and truly valuable work, the section which illustrates the present subject has been copied. WANSDYKE is derived from the C. Brit, gwahanu, separare, and this coupled with the other fact, confirms the idea of its having been a frontier line. The opinion of the late Sir Richard Hoare leads us to believe that with the exception of WANSDYKE, and BOKERLEY DITCH near Woodyates, the Wiltshire Ditches were lines of communication, covered ways and sheltered, leading to British settlements.
In the immediate neighbourhood of Stanunck and Forcet in the county of Richmond, are some very remarkable fortifications, enclosing, by a system of irregular lines, a larger space of ground than perhaps has ever been discovered in any one encampment of any period in this island. It appears also to be connected with a vast praetenture, consisting of a rampart and two ditches, drawn from the Tees to the Swale, somewhat obliquely, and terminating near Barforth at the Northern, and at Easby on the Southern extremity. It is sometimes called by the inhabitants SCOTCH, and sometimes ROMAN DYKE; but it is indisputably neither a work of the one nor of the other of these nations. This fact will be proved by the following account of the work itself.
The SCOTS' DYKE as it is generally called, though some times the ROMAN DYKE, much resembles the iDflltl's on Newmarket Heath, consisting of an high rampart of earth, with a foss on each side, out of which the materials have been dug. I say on each side, for the two fosses are very conspicuous on Gatherley Moor, where the work is most entire. A very extensive work, however, with which it appears to have had some connexion, was traced about the year 1723 by Mr John Warburton, Somerset Herald, from a place called Wheelr fell, where it enters England between the rivers North Tine and Bead. At Busy Gap the Roman wall cuts through it, which is decisive as to the comparative antiquity of the two works. Soon after, the SCOTS' DYKE, as it is there called, crosses the South, Tine, and falls in with the course of the river Alone, the banks of which being very deep, answer the purpose of an artificial fortification, and supply the want of it to the head of that valley. At Scoti Neck it enters the Bishoprick of Durham, and points towards the head of Tees, the course of which it is supposed to have pursued to Winstone, and thence to Gatherley Moor, after which it reappears in the township of Easby, and is seen, so far as I know, no more. There is some doubt with respect to its identity with the work traced by Mr Warburton out of Scotland, as the two extremities terminate several miles from each other, and form a considerable angle. Dr Whitaker considers it to have been one of those gigantic, but always inefficient, attempts to preserve the peace between two neighbouring and hostile tribes, to which savages have always been fond of resorting. That the vast lines about Aldburgh, Stanwick, and Forcet, are connected with this mighty rampart, though they do not absolutely come in contact with it, there can be little doubt. The great similarity of the agger and foss in both, goes far, in my opinion, to prove them, respectively, works of the same people, and perhaps of the same age.
The outline of the works at Stanwick and Forcet approaches to no geometrical figure, nor, though altogether irregular, has it been directed, so far as Dr Whitaker could discover, by any advantage or disadvantages of ground. The whole is nearly upon a level. The whole circuit cannot be less than five miles, nor the area less than one thousand acres.
On the main, my authority concludes, that this stupendous work formed the enclosure of a British city of unknown antiquity, abandoned in all probability, before the Romans invaded the Brigantes. There is not a vestige of Roman antiquity about the place. It is only by comparing analogous facts that we can hope to obtain any satisfactory information concerning their origin and intention. From pursuing this method in the present difficulty, we are enabled to draw a few conclusions that help us, though in a trifling degree, to dispel some of the darkness with which the subject before us is incumbered.
The four great Wiltshire Ditches traverse the Northern edge of a ridge of hills, and have their bank invariably on the South side, and their ditch on the North. From this it is conclusive, that these were DITCHES OF DEFENCE, they could not have been cast up by the British against their invaders, because the ditch is on the wrong side. By the like process of argument we see that the fosse of OFFA'S and of WATT'S DYKE is on the Welsh side of each. The fosse of the DEVIL'S DITCH and FLEAM DITCH is on the West side of each. WANSDYKE must have been formed, as Stukely says, by the Belgae. It is the last and most Northern boundary, and would cover their Southern conquests. Just as we see that OFFA'S DYKE shut out the Welsh. This enables us to draw another inference; namely, that when we see two of these ditches running parallel to each other, the fosse being on the same side of each, there are manifest proofs of their being constructed by the same people, and with the like object in view. And this again leads me to think that the four Wiltshire Ditches, were the works of the Belgae, as we know that the two Welsh Ditches were the labor of OFFA; WATT'S, was the earlier of his two, I suspect, and probably not being sufficiently extended, the defect was subsequently supplied by forming the longer barrier. And that FLEAM DYKE, the DEVIL'S DITCH, and BRENT DITCH, had the same intention; if defensive they were to protect the East Anglians against the Mercians, or, looking to a much earlier period, the Celtic invaders against the Aborigines. On the other hand, if these works are regarded solely as frontier lines, there are less difficulties to encounter; always, however, excepting the great historical obscurity which overhangs the Wiltshire and Cambridgeshire Ditches, a darkness which it is to be feared will never be dispelled. We have nothing but conjecture for our guide; fancy must supply the place of history, and though it may sound paradoxical, yet on a subject enveloped in so much obscurity, the most imaginative and ingenious may perhaps turn out after all to be the best antiquary.
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* Full title:
"Salopia antiqua: or, An enquiry from personal survey into the 'druidical,' military, and other early remains in Shropshire and the north Welsh borders; with observations upon the names of places, and a glossary of words used in the county of Salop"