The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter XXXI

RACES of a military earthwork, now popularly called "the Roman Rig," have been observed on the north side of the "Occupation Road," otherwise "Grimesthorpe Road," and Mr. Leader mentions "the remarkable rampart which ran from the bank of the Don in the Nursery at Sheffield, and may still be traced from the Occupation Road near Burn Greave to the low-lying land beyond Mexborough." I have not been able to find these traces in the Nursery or near the Occupation Road myself, for building operations and the cultivation of land seem to have removed them, but a well-preserved portion of the mound and ditch which formed the earthwork may still be seen at Grimesthorpe, in a wood, whose trees are nearly all now gone, called Wilkinson Spring. Here the mound and ditch have been preserved by the wood, for there are no traces of them in the adjacent cultivated land. At the end of the wood nearest to Wincobank the termination of this mound and ditch is so sharp and so clearly cut as to force upon the mind the conviction that the earthwork at Grimesthorpe is only a fragment of an embankment which at one end extended by the side of the "Grimesthorpe Road," running upon the crest of the hill, in a south-westerly direction, and at the other extended in a north-easterly direction across the brook at the bottom of the hill, where the village of Grimesthorpe stands, so as to be continuous with the ridgeway which goes up the hill and through Wincobank wood, as far as the camp on the top of the wood, and from thence to Kimberworth and Greasborough. This fragment of embankment and ditch at Grimesthorpe is about eighty yards in length. The ditch is on the southern side of the embankment, as it is all the way to Greasborough, except in a few places where a very steep natural ridge supplies the place of both embankment and ditch. The top of the embankment at Grimesthorpe is from five to six feet in breadth, and from its rounded shape I should say that there has been no path thereon for a long time, though a path runs near it. The sides of the ditch measured on their slopes are eleven feet in depth, and the width of the ditch measured from the centre of the embankment to the opposite margin of the ditch is twenty-eight feet, the width at the bottom of the ditch being six feet. The sides slope in such a way as to have formed, when the work was in its original state, fossa fastigata, a fastigate ditch, like an inverted roof. The ditch seems big enough to have supplied the necessary earth for the throwing up of the embankment. The cultivation of land has destroyed the continuity between this earthwork and the steep ridgeway which goes from the bottom of the hill to the top of Wincobank wood. But there is a footpath on the summit of the ridge which goes through the wood. There is a small water-worn gutter or gulley by the side of this footpath, but no sign of a ditch or of any kind of artificial work, the slopes of the natural ridge on both sides being so steep that a ditch would have been for defensive purposes unnecessary. The path on the ridge—I have called it a ridgeway —continues up the hill till it enters a breach, shown in the drawing below, in the south-west side of the large oval entrenchment which forms the camp on the summit of Wincobank wood. In my boyhood this large enclosure was shown to me as a "Roman camp." Thirty years ago there was much less smoke from the forges beneath, and the thick foliage of the wood hid much of the embankments and ditches of the camp from sight. But now the trees—a few small oaks mingled with the mountain ash—are sparse and ill-thriven, and the whole camp, which occupies a commanding position, with a wide prospeft on all sides, is well exposed to view. The inner mound of the camp rises three feet above the level of the ground within the enclosure. The ditch between the two mounds is ample, and, in the three places where we measured it, it has a perpendicular depth of nine feet, corresponding with the depth of the ditch at Grimesthorpe. The width of the ditch is practically the same as the width of the ditch at Grimesthorpe, for, in the places where we measured it, the tape recorded a width of thirty feet between the two mounds, the measurements being all taken from the centre of the inner mound to the centre of the smaller and outer mound. Perfect uniformity was not to be expected on the part of those who dug out the ditch, nor is perfect accuracy of measurement possible on the part of the surveyor. Consequently the measurements vary a little. But the variation is so small as to be a matter of no importance, and those who carefully examine these earthworks will not doubt that the embankment at Grimesthorpe and the camp on the top of Wincobank wood were made by the same people. They are uniform parts of one plan.

We shall not rightly understand this camp, or the ridgeway and contiguous ditch with which it is connected, unless we bear in mind the leading facct that all through the length of the ridgeway, extending from Grimesthorpe to Greasborough, and to some extent in the camp itself, the makers of the earthworks have supplemented or made use of the works of nature. This, as I have just said, is evident in the ridgeway which leads up the wood from Grimesthorpe, where there is no trace of either embankment or ditch.

Some years ago Mr. Leader measured this camp. He found that "from north-east to south-west the tape recorded 133 yards, and from north-west to south-east 103 yards, showing that the camp is oval, and not round." He also found "that the area enclosed is nearly three acres." The inner mound is well marked through the whole circumference of the camp, but the outer mound, which is a little lower down the hill, is absent on the northern boundary. In order to show the shape and appearance of the two surrounding mounds as clearly as possible a section of them is here given, with the following measurements:
 * Width of ditch, A to B - - - - - 30 feet
 * Height of outer mound, C to D - - - - 3 feet
 * Height of inner mound, B to E - - - - 9 feet
 * Inside height of inner mound, B to F - - 3 feet

The plan or sketch on the following page will show the manner in which the outer mound surrounds the camp, except on its northern boundary and on a small portion of the eastern boundary where, along with the inner mound, it has been removed by the cultivation of the ground. This absence of the outer mound on the northern side should be noted, for the natural defence is quite as great on the southern side, and the absence of this portion of the fortification on the northern side is consistent with the never-varying presence of the ditch on the south side of the ridgeway, as though it had been intended for a defence against attack delivered from the south. The space within the camp has not been levelled; it is hilly, especially on the southern side, so that the mounds cannot be seen at one view. The mounds are as a whole well preserved, but the soft nature of the earth of which they are composed renders them an easy prey to the spade, and to the mischievous tricks of children who play upon them. Years ago the mounds were a favourite abode of ants, and the hills of those insedls were robbed of their eggs by men engaged in pheasant-breeding.

The path which goes through the breach in the mound, on the western side, is continued in an easterly direction along the diameter of the camp, and goes through the site of themounds on the eastern side, which is close to the eastern boundary of the wood. But this path is modern and not a continuation of the ridgeway which descends the hill in a north-easterly direction on the opposite side, and is shown in the aquatint at the beginning of this chapter. The ancient way did not pass through the camp, but touched or skirted it upon its south-eastern side.

With a little care the actual course of the ancient way can be traced from its point of contact with the camp to the plainly-marked ridgeway shown in the aquatint. It ran to the east, by the side of the hedgerows, for a distance of just one-third of a mile till it joined the more perfect and better-preserved ridgeway at a quarry or gravel pit. This discovery, made by Mr. Leader, the Rev. W. S. Sykes, and myself, is a matter of considerable interest, for we were satisfied that the ridgeway, which ascends the hill from Grimesthorpe and descends it in the direction of Meadow Hall, is connected with the camp, touching it at its south-east side, and entering it at the point of contact.

As we walk down the ridgeway from the gravel pit we shall notice that on the left or north-western side the ground slopes steeply down to a great depth. On this side nature has supplied the necessary fortification. But the opposite or south-east side of the ridge is not so steep, and here a ditch will be noticed. The ditch, which is best preserved towards the bottom of the hill, is about thirty feet in width, and is on the south-east side of the ridgeway. It continues on this side, in the places where it is preserved, all the way to Greasborough—the furthest point to which I have examined it. The summit of the ridge is from six to eight feet in breadth, being wider at the top than at the bottom of the hill. It is still a public way, and there are stiles here and there where the wall of an adjacent field crosses the ridge. There are no signs of pavement, and one can hardly conceive that such a path could have been used for any kind of vehicle, or that it was originally used for any other purpose than that of a combined rampart and military way.

The course of the ridgeway across the valley and over the Blackburn Brook can only now be guessed, but we may be confident that it went straight towards the ridge on the opposite side of the valley. It re-appears at the foot of the hill near Meadow Hall, and, keeping close to the left or north-west side of the turnpike leading to Kimberworth, it proceeds upon a natural ridge, like a huge railway bank, covered with brushwood and timber on the left, with steep ground sloping down towards Templeborough and the Don on the right. The way runs upon the top of this natural ridge as far as Kimberworth—though the raised bank is not again apparent until that village has been passed—and this running of the path upon a ridge is remarkable as constant through its course from Grimesthorpe to Kimberworth, being only broken by the flat piece of meadow land near the Blackburn Brook. Nature has in a great measure made the rampart, and the absence of a natural barrier has been supplied by human agency. In the village of Kimberworth the course of the ridgeway can only be traced by the footpath which goes along the east side of the churchyard and leads to a conspicuous part of the way known as Barber Balk. Here there is an artificial and not a natural bank or ridge, though the way still maintains the highest ground. An old packhorse lane runs upon the bank, which resembles a little railway embankment, the average breadth of the top being from six to eight feet. In some places the height of the bank measured on the slope from the bottom of the ditch—which is only faintly marked—on the south-east side is from seven to eight feet; it is rather less in others. The ground has here been long cultivated, and the ditch must once have been much deeper. On the opposite side, the bank is very low, being seldom more than one or two feet above the level of the adjacent fields. Oaks and other trees grow here and there upon the top or sides of the balk or bank. Where it is preserved, the bank, with a path either on its top or by its side, pursues its course through the village of Greasborough, and after going down the hill on the north-east side of that village, and passing the south-east end of a sheet of water known as the Mill Dam, appears on the opposite hill side in an almost perfect form. Here it resembles the earthwork at Grimesthorpe, and the Bar Dyke in Bradfield, and at once strikes the eye as an imposing military entrenchment. The ditch at this place is nearly forty feet in width, but the depth is less than at Grimesthorpe, being only four-and-a-half feet. The ditch still continues on the south-east side. Here the way does not run on the top of the bank but on its north-west side. The sides of the ditch are not so steep as those at Grimesthorpe, nor is the shape so fastigate, but it is the best-preserved portion of this great earthwork still existing. I have now described the ridgeway in its course from Grimesthorpe to Greasborough. But it does not follow that these places are its actual termini. From Grimesthorpe it possibly extended, as I have said, along or near to the "Grimesthorpe Road," by Meadow Head, Hall Carr, and Burngreave, crossing the Don and continuing through Upperthorpe, Steel Bank, and Walkley, and running upon the ridge of the hill in Stannington, until it reached or came in contact with the earthworks in Bradfield, such as Castle Hill and Bar Dike, already described. This supposition is chiefly supported by evidence drawn from local tradition, and from philology. That evidence consists of the embankment formerly existing in the Nursery, near the Don, the tradition about a "Roman road" at Steel Bank, the discovery at or near Steel Bank of stone implements already described in a previous chapter, of the names Walkley and Barber Nook, and of the name Steel Bank itself, which occurs not only as the name of a place midway between Barber Nook and Walkley, but also as an old name on the summit of the hill in Stannington. The street, says Grimm, is the public way, the king's way; the path, the smaller, narrower way was called in Old High German stigilla, in Middle High German stigele, stigel. A portion of the ridge upon which Hadrian's Wall runs is known as Steel Rig. We may take Steel Bank and Steel Rig as almost identical in meaning. It is just possible that the name may mean "steep bank," but "stile" is found in Yorkshire as meaning "a narrow path, a road." "Bank" is here used in its old sense of "a portion of the surface of the ground raised or thrown up into a ridge or shelf; a lengthened mound with steeply sloping sides." Steel Bank then means path bank, a bank with a road on its top, just as hedge-bank is a bank with a hedge on its top.

Let us now enquire whether any light has been thrown upon these ancient earthworks by the names which they bear, or by the names of places adjacent thereto. We may at once dismiss such names as "Roman Rig" as modern fancies, and as quite unknown until the present century. The name Wincobank is rather striking, and this word resolves itself into three parts. "Bank" is the ridge or continuous mound which goes up from Grimesthorpe to the camp at the top of the wood, and descends on the opposite side. Harrison in 1637 speaks of "Wincowe Wood" and "Winkow Common," and he also speaks of "Wincabanke," meaning the raised bank or ridge leading to "Wincowe." The second syllable is "how," Old Norse haugr, a mound, and the first syllable describes the kind of mound. "Winc" or "Wink" appears to be the same word as our modern surname Wing, which, as a place-name, occurs as Weng, and is found in such place-names as Wenghale. This word is the Old Norse vangr or vengi, Danish vænge, Old English wang, a garden, home-field, enclosed place. What the English settler saw when he came over here was a field or space enclosed by a mound, and he called it Wang-how, Weng-how, meaning enclosure mound, camp mound. Stratmann renders the English wang by the Latin campus. The change from Weng to Wing would be quite regular in the dialect of this district, and besides "the older e is converted into i by nasals and nasal combinations." And in the local dialect medial g becomes c or k.

In 1695 Bishop Gibson wrote: "'On the north side of the river, over against Templeborough, is a high hill, called Wincobank, from which a large bank is continued, without interruption, almost five miles, being in one place called Danes Bank. And about quarter of a mile south from Kemp Bank (over which this bank runs) there is another agger, which runs parallel with that from a place called Birchwood, running towards Mexburgh, and terminating within half a mile of its west end, as Kemp Bank runs by Swinton to Mexburgh more north.'" So it seems that the ridgeway connected with the camp was known in 1695 as Danes Bank, at all events in one part of its course. The men who knew it by that name were far more likely to be right than those who of late years have called it "the Roman Rig."

We have seen that to the north of Kimberworth the ridge-way is known as Barber Balk. About a mile to the west of it are Barber Wood and Walkworth Wood. This word Barber seems to give a clue to the origin of the earthwork. The same word occurs in Barber Nook, near Crookes, where it will be remembered that stone hatchets and other prehistoric remains have been found, and where a tradition about a "Roman road" exists, or has existed. It is also found in Barber Booth at Edale in Derbyshire, in Barber Fields and Barber Stones near Ringinglow. It means barbarian. Walkworth seems to be derived from the Old English wealh, a foreigner, and wurð, a protected clan homestead. If we say that Walkworth is foreigners' homestead, and Barber Balk is barbarians' bank, or a continuous mound thrown up by barbarians, shall we say that the designation barbarian (barbar) and foreigner (wealh) were intended to apply to the same people? I think we must say so. It would appear then that at an early period the English-speaking inhabitants of the district not only spoke of this long mound or ridgeway as barbarians' barrier, but that they also spoke of certain people living in their neighbourhood as "foreigners," or people whose nationality differed from their own. Now who were these foreigners ? They cannot have been the Romans, for, in my opinion, that people neither made the camp just described, nor the ridgeway, and the fact: that, as we shall presently see, flint implements and chippings are found on the ridgeway affords some proof that these earthworks were not made by Roman hands. Moreover, the English settlers would hardly speak of Roman fortifications or military ways as the work of barbarians. I am about to maintain that these earthworks were made by a Cimbric people, and in this connection I would observe that not only is there a Walkworth adjacent to Barber Balk; there is another place ending in worth, a village through which Barber Balk runs, namely Kimberworth. Can this be Cimbra-wurð, or Cimbera-wurð homestead of the Cimbri, a race once inhabiting the Danish peninsula? In a previous chapter it was suggested that the Cimbri made the Bar Dike, and another entrenchment in Bradfield. There is an earthwork in Eckington, eight miles to the south of Kimberworth, which is called Dane Balk, and this would appear to point to the Danish, meaning Cimbric, origin of these banks. This name, as well as Danes Bank, which, as we have seen, was applied to some part of the ridgeway in 1695, reminds us of the Dannevirke, or Danish wall, the great bank or entrenchment between Schleswig and Holstein, which runs across the Danish peninsula from sea to sea. In Ellis's transcript of the Doomsday Survey, and in the published facsimile, Kimberworth appears in large letters as Chibereworde, and this would appear at first sight to be fatal to my theory that the word means homestead of the Cimbri. But it may be the strongest proof of it. The old scribe or copyist, not knowing the place itself, may very easily, when copying from the original draft, have omitted the dash or curved line over the i, which would represent the letter m, and therefore I propose to read Chimbereworde. And I do this with greater confidence because in a deed which is less than a century later in date than Doomsday the name occurs as Kymberworth, because that spelling is found in other early charters, and because the word is not a word which was likely to have undergone such a change. For these reasons I think we may with some probability take the Old English form of the name to have been Cimbera-wurð. The singular Cimber, meaning Cimbrian, occurs in Cicero as a surname of L. Tullius, one of the murderers of Cæsar, but there appears to be no instance of the name in the earliest English writers. Kimberworth then may have been the tribal homestead of some Cimbric clan. It is however possible that the word may be connected with the Low Latin cumbra, or cumbrus, a heap, or embankment, especially as the ridgeway passed through the village. But the adjacent Walkworth affords evidence to the contrary, and on other grounds it is much less likely.

A recent writer describes the Cimbri as "an ancient nation of unknown affinity, which was one of the most formidable enemies of the Roman power, and has proved one of the most difficult subjects for the historical investigator." Classical writers were divided in opinion as to the origin of the Cimbri, and the like difference has prevailed amongst modern scholars. The question is whether they were a Celtic or a Teutonic people, and Professor Rolleston, judging from an examination of the form of their skulls, says "the craniographer will incline to the Celtic hypothesis." It need hardly be said that evidence founded on the form of their skulls—they are round, like those found in the Danish peninsula—is of great weight. In addition to this Professor Rolleston points to the existence in England of earthworks which remind us of the 'castra ac spatia' of the Cimbri in their native land (Tacit. Germ. 37) but which have been shown by Colonel Lane Fox to have been thrown up by invaders advancing inland from the sea."

According to Plutarch the Germans called the Cimbri "robbers." Grimm connected the word with the Old High German chemphari, Old English cempere, a warrior.

When describing the Bar Dike and other earthworks in Bradfield I quoted a passage from the Germania of Tacitus, of which I now give a translation. The historian says: "'The same German promontory [meaning the Danish peninsula] is occupied by the Cimbri next the Ocean, a state which is now small, but of mighty renown. Moreover the widespread vestiges of their ancient fame, and their camps and ways remain on either shore, by whose circuit you may even now estimate the immense military strength of the people, and also the degree of credit to be given to the account of so great an emigration.'" It will be noticed that I have ventured to translate castra ac spatia as "camps and ways." I find that spatium means path or course in various classical writers. Thus Ovid speaks of spatium declivis Olympi, and Tacitus himself uses the word in that sense. The "great emigration" mentioned by the historian seems to refer to the "Cimbrian Deluge," there being various traditions recorded by ancient historians "as to the occurrence of such catastrophes in the Cimbric Peninsula, and in 'extremis Galliæ.'" And Professor Rolleston says that "it is of importance to recollect that there are geological reasons for holding that the so-called 'Cimbrian Deluge' was but one of a series of submersions, each of which may have caused an emigration." That emigration may have been partly into the British Isles. The invaders appear to have landed in the north of Yorkshire, and to have entrenched themselves as they advanced towards the south and south-east. This would account for the uniform presence of the ditch on the south-east side of the ridgeway, it being intended as a defence against attack delivered from that side.

If we suppose that this warlike and renowned people invaded this country, or settled therein, a reasonable explanation is offered of the camp (castra) and the ridgeway (spatium?) described in this chapter, and everything seems consistent. And if we suppose that the Cimbri were a Celtic people, it would be natural for the earliest Germanic settlers in England to ascribe their fortifications, their military roads, and their dwelling-places to the barbarian, the foreigner, and the Dane (meaning the Cimbrian). They believed that these works were not Germanic, and they also knew that they were not Roman.

The camp in Wincobank wood and the ridgeway connected with it were old—we know not how old—in the days of Tacitus. That they existed in the days of a people who used flint implements has been proved by recent discoveries. The Rev. C. V. Collier and the Rev. W. S. Sykes have found flint flakes, charred flints, and flint implements on the ridgeway leading down from the camp to Meadow Hall. Four of these implements, represented in their actual size, are figured above, the figures I and 2 showing a flint knife, of light colour, on both its sides. This instrument is not unlike a modern butter knife with a bevelled back, the bevel being as cleanly cut as though the flint had been a piece of wax. The edge is very sharp, but broken in a few places, and the sharpness is produced by a wide bevel, extending to half the breadth of the knife, but this unfortunately is not shown in the photogravure. The knife was broken across the centre, and had to be glued together. The most remarkable feature of the knife is the hole or groove which has been cut on both sides, apparently to enable the first finger and thumb to retain a firm grasp. As these holes are deeply cut, and as the knife is in no part thicker than a five-shilling piece, the wonder is how, in such a hard material as flint, the holes were cut at all, for the division between the two cavities is very thin. So smooth are the cavities that one would hardly suppose that mere chipping could produce them even in the hands of the most cunning artificer. The other flints are less interesting. Two of them are scrapers, each having one sharp edge, and they were used for scraping skins or other materials. The remaining flint, which is of much darker colour than the rest, has a serrated edge, and can even now be used as a saw. The lapse of time has had no effect upon this hard material.Amongst some other flint implements found at Ashover in Derbyshire I have a small flint awl, very sharp at the point, and evidently intended for making holes in skins. Canon Atkinson of Danby has found flints in the entrenchments on the moorlands to the west of Whitby, and I believe they are occasionally found in the entrenchments at Bradfield. Of the Yorkshire entrenchments Canon Atkinson says "the devisers and builders of those massive and skilfully projected lines of defence were makers and users of flint weapons and flint implements; and yet that is not a fact inconsistent with a knowledge, on their part, and possession of instruments and weapons of metal."

In August 1891 nineteen Roman coins were found in the ditch adjoining the south side of the ridgeway, towards the bottom of the hill on the Meadow Hall side. The discovery was accidentally made by some navvies when they were cutting through the ridgeway in making a branch of the Midland Railway to Chapeltown. "They were found," says a writer in the Sheffield Independent, "under a flat stone, and had evidently been placed there for security." The opinion of Mr. Barclay V. Head, of the British Museum, was taken as to three of the coins, and he pronounced that they belonged to the reigns of Hadrian, Domitian, and Antoninus Pius. That of Hadrian was the finest. a The coins are dispersed, and are in private hands. It might be said that the discovery of these coins affords some proof of the Roman origin both of the ridgeway and the camp. There is no reason, however, why a Roman should not have hidden his treasure in the earthworks of a conquered or foreign people.

The proximity of the ridgeway to a now well-known Roman town will be noticed, and it might on that ground be supposed that the builders of Templeborough were also the makers of the ridgeway and the camp. We have here the same problem as that which presents itself in the earthworks adjacent to Hadrian's wall. Whether the earthworks adjacent to the great wall are of Roman construction or not, the ridgeway and the camp at Wincobank show few signs of Roman origin. It seems to me that the evidence is all the other way, though it is not unlikely that the Romans seized and occupied military works which had been prepared by another people, and used them as their own.

There is one very striking feature about the prehistoric earthworks in this neighbourhood, and that is the uniform width of their ditches or trenches. Whether we examine them at Bradfield, Grimesthorpe, Wincobank, or Roe Wood, we shall always find that the width of the trench is thirty feet, with occasional slight variations, but so slight as in no way to affect the rule. The only seeming exception is the ditch of Barber Balk at Greasborough, which is forty feet in width, but is not so deep as the ditch is in other places. The quantity of earth cast up there was, however, as nearly as possible the same as the quantity cast up at Wincobank, and along the ridgeway. Either, then, a uniform width was understood and maintained by the makers of these earthworks, or else they were dug out by gangs of men of equal numbers, and working the same number of hours each day over a given space.