Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/327

rum, ANCIENT EARTHWORKS I. TRIBAL OR MILITARY WORKS (i) Wallud, or Waulud's Bank. — In Alfred's pact with Guth- 878, he names the source of the Lea {Ligean) as the point at which the Anglo-Danish boundary was to leave that river and proceed north- wards to Bedford. This point is marked by a very early work, which stands a little to the north of the Icknield Way, on a slope rising out of the Leagrave marshes, not far from Limbury. It is an irregular oval in plan, with one straight side, and is said to enclose some 10 acres. To the north-west it makes a crescent-shaped bend about the well-head with its seven-branched springs, from which the Lea issues. The straight side next the river consists of a steep scarp 8 or 9 feet high at the south, but lessening in height towards the north. Here are no signs of rampart ; probably the river was held to be defence enough. On its curved sides there are still traces of a great rampart and a wide fosse, running round the oval, and of a second rampart and fosse outside this again. Old inhabitants still speak of this outer line and of its destruction, and the ordnance map of 1823 shows the remains as much more perfect than they are at present. A gap in the rampart on the north-east may have been an original entrance. The river also bends round the lines, and on the south in flood times creeps up to them. Over the whole of this area Mr. Worthington G. Smith has found hundreds of neolithic implements. 1 Sir John Evans also refers to numerous flint implements found on the site.' (2) Maiden Bower, near Dunstable. — This famous work is thus described by Camden : ' At a little distance upon the very descent of Chiltern Hills, there is a round military fortification, such as Strabo has told us the British towns were. It contains 9 acres and is called Mad- ning-bowre and Madin-boure. . . . The swineherds now and then in the neighbouring fields find coins of the emperors, which they call to this day Madning money.' 3 Stukeley says ' Madan Castle is circular, perhaps oval, the space within is a fine plain ; the vallum is small, and the ditch much smaller ; so that I am persuaded it was made rather for spectacle than defence.' 4 But he forgets the gradual reduction of both, which has still further progressed since his day. An old green road, once an ancient way, parallel, and probably pre- vious to, the Roman Watling Street, passes the field in which Maiden Bower (or Burb) stands, its curving vallum well in view, owing to the level nature of its site. Originally enclosed by a single rampart and fosse, the area within is a little over 10 acres. The rampart at its strongest measures 28 feet at the base by 10 ft. 6 in. in height, but there remain only slight traces of the outer edge of the fosse, which was once 18 to 20 1 Mr. Worthington G. Smith in Man, the Primeval Savage (p. 342), suggests that the place may have been the Ltgeanburh taken by Cuthwulf in his campaign against Bedford (Jnglo-Sax. Cbrott. [Rolls Ser.], i. 33), and that the name survives in Limbury. 2 Evans' Anct. Stone Implements, pp. 62, 253, 271, 369, etc. 3 Camden's Britannia (Gibson's ed. 1695), p. 289. 4 Iter. Borealc, p. 17. 269