A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE Stretton Grandison Camp. — According to Gough here was a square camp," but it is not now to be traced. All the artificial work we find is a sup- posed line of entrenchment crossed in approaching Homend Bank and a deep fosse further north-west ; these fragments are of doubtful origin and purpose." There are two small mounds, possibly tumuli, near, and further east a much larger circular mound, by some regarded as the chief point of defence of the camp. Stretton Grandison is situated nearly 8 miles north-west of Ledbury. OFFA'S DIKE IN HEREFORDSHIRE In no part of its length, from its commencement on the shore of the Dee estuary in Flint to its southern end at the Sedbury Cliff on Severn, in Tidenham, Gloucestershire, is the line of this great earthwork, the - Mark ' of Mercia, more broken and obscured than in its traverse of the county of Hereford. The opposition to the Mercian advance in the direction of Wales was more determined and continuous in this district, where no natural barrier afforded protection, than in any other ; and, as will be seen, caused the line of the Dike to be here broken and altered even in the course of its construction. Next, not long after its completion, Mercia, in this part, and this part only, crossed the Wye, and pushed forward its borders so as to include the district west of that river as far as the Dore [Sax. Chron. 941) ; so that here the Dike ceased, in part, to have its meaning. Again, the Dike was normally formed of moderately sized pieces of stone, closely filled in with soil. The absence of stone in the greater part of Here- fordshire, and the consequent use of the local marl in its construction, left it readily destructible by natural and artificial means. It is noticeable that the more perfect parts remaining in the county are those in proximity to the Cornstone and Ludlow shale beds.'" Further, in the less hilly parts of the county the land has come under cultivation, or been divided into small inclosures ; and the pasturing of cattle has led to the abolition of the yew trees which (as well as large holly trees), elsewhere lend a material assistance to its identification. All these causes have reduced the Dike in many parts to a condition strongly in contrast to that obtaining in the wilder and more hilly parts of its course. After passing through the extreme east of Radnorshire, in a course of 7 miles nearly due south from Knighton, the Dike leaves that county at Burva (Brit. Bwr—fa, the place of entrenchment) and Ditch Hill. It enters Here- fordshire a mile west of Knill, at a point called ' Rugedich ' and ' Rogedich ' in an ancient perambulation of the county ;*^ then takes a bold sweep round " Additions to Camden's Brif. (ed. 1789), ii, 463. " Trans. Woolhope Field Club (1893-4), 188. "" The part of the Dike which skirts Tidenham Chase in Gloucestershire is called the stan-raew {stone row) in Edwy's grant of the manor to Bath Abbey circa 956 and in the grant of Wm. Marshal Earl of Pembroke to Tintern Abbey in 1223. The word raw will be found to occur frequently in the text in the forms of row, rough, ruge, roge, &c.
- ' P.R.O. Misc. : Chan. Inq. Hen. Ill, file 19, No. 12. This was erroneously identified by the late
Mr. R. W. Banks with the Bank Ditch on the road to Penybont near New Radnor, Arch. Camb. (4th Ser.), x, 302. The same writer (ibid, xiii, 31) confused Cingestun in a Saxon document relating to Tidenham /(where the Dike is mentioned) with Kington, in Herefordshire ; and was thus led to the erroneous statement that ' there is no doubt that the Dike ended at Bridge Sollars,' and that Asser was wrong in saying that it ■* extended from sea to sea.' 258
