Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/393

 ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS THERE is abundant reason to expect more than a general resemblance between the Anglo-Saxon antiquities of Suffolk and those of its northern neighbour. Before the draining of the Fens, East Anglia was cut off from Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire ; and, to judge by the name of Essex, the Stour constituted an effective tribal frontier. That this isolation was not distasteful to the inhabitants, but rather desired as a matter of policy, is shown by the elaborate fortifications erected near Newmarket, against an advance from the interior.^ The principal of these is the Devil's Dyke across the famous Heath, barring the way between Reach in the Fens and the comparatively high ground near Wood Ditton, where primeval woodland no doubt continued the defensive line. It is the most easterly of the series, and consists of a rampart 1 8 ft. above the surface, the crest being 12 ft. wide and 30 ft. above the bottom of the ditch which lies on the west of it. Such a stupendous work over 7 miles in length will hardly be assigned to the Anglian settlers without further proof, but it must be remembered that the Bokerly Dyke was proved by the late General Pitt Rivers to be of Roman or later date, and the Wansdyke that runs from the Severn near Portishead to Andover is probably contemporary.'' Both these remarkable earthworks were evidently intended to withstand invasion from the Southern Midlands, as the ditch is on the northern side, and a limiting date may some day be found in the same way for these ramparts of East Anglia. Whether of post-Roman or prehistoric construction, they seem in any case to have constituted a tribal frontier in the Anglo-Saxon period, as relics on either side are for the most part quite distinct, though, as will be seen later, there is considerable variety in the Suffolk series. This is perhaps due rather to difference in date than to a conflict of races ; but the evidence at present is insufficient to explain many of the discoveries now to be enumerated. Of the accounts here summarized one was communicated by Rev. H. M. Scarth to the Archaeological Institute' in 1863, and was itself based on a report by Mr. Francis Francis to the Field newspaper ; another was given to the Society of Antiquaries * by Mr. Septimus Davidson, from which the ' Described in 1883 by Professor Babington, Ancient Cambs. 95 (2nd. edition, Camb. Antiq. Soc. octavo publications, no. xx). ' V.C.H. Somen, i, 374 ; Pitt Rivers, Excavations in Bokerly Dyke and Wansdyke (1892), iii, 25 ; see also pp. xiii, 246. ' Arch. Journ. xx, 188 ; Field, 17 Jan. 1863, p. 61 ; 24 Jan. p. 75. of U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, 1 891), p. 603, pi. Ixxvi, figs. 118, 119.
 * Proc. Soc. Antij. (2nd. scr.), ii, 177 ; summary by G. H. Boehmer, Prehistoric Naval Architecture (Report