Itinerarium curiosum (centuria I) : $b or, an account of the antiquities, and remarkable curiosities in nature or art, observed in travels through Great BritainStukeley, William
History
Itinerarium curiosum (centuria I) : $b or, an account of the antiquities, and remarkable curiosities in nature or art, observed in travels through Great Britain
Stukeley, William
Great Britain -- Antiquities -- Early works to 1800; Great Britain -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Ann’s hill; and makes several right angles to
humour the edges of the other hills: the _vallum_ is always on the
south side, and the higher ground behind it: then it mounts up to the
highest _apex_ of Runway hill. But the method of the Roman road is
this: it goes along the northern side of this hill, preserving itself
upon the level, being cut like a terrace-walk, with a parapet before
it next the precipice; and that winding in and out, as the curvatures
of the hill require: it passes just by Calston lime-kiln, and is
defaced by it; for the workmen make no scruple to dig through it for
their materials, and this practice has been so old as to denominate
the town lying beneath. Soon after, it meets with the Wansdike,
descending the hill just by the gibbet: here it enters full into it,
and very dexterously makes use of it, all along to the bottom, on a
very convenient shelf, or spurn of the hill: at the place of union is
a flexure of the Wansdike, so that the Roman road coincides with it
directly; and in order to raise it from a ditch into a road, the Roman
workmen have thrown in most part of the rampire, still preserving it as
a terrace to prevent the danger, and the terror of the descent on one
side.
I shall mention, upon another occasion, some other observations I
have made long since, that overthrow the notion of those that imagine
Wansdike was cast up by the Saxons, as a limit of the West Saxon and
Mercian kingdoms, or that its name is derived from their god _Woden_:
but here we have a most incontestable proof that it was in being
before the Roman times; and its very name shows it, signifying, in
the old British language, the division dike, _guaban_, _distinctio_,
_separatio_: it is indeed the work of the _Belgæ_, their fourth and
last boundary. These two, the Roman road and Wansdike, go together
after this manner, till they enter the inclosures a little north of
Hedington town below Runway hill. At Calston is a most famous spring,
or cataract of water, coming out of the chalk-hill, and much talked of.
Wansdike was made by the people of the south, to cover their country,
as the mode of it sufficiently testifies, and, as we said before, was
the most northern bounds of the Belgic kingdom. When from the top of
these hills you view the Roman road, towards the west you see it butts
full upon the Bath, or that great chink between Lansdown and the banks
of the river Avon going to Bristol.
[Sidenote: +Verlucio.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. LXVIII.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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