A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE From Hereford southward to the county boundary the hne long remained lost. Recent investigations have led to the determination of the following line as its probable, and almost certain, course. At Bartonsham Farm, the south-west corner of the city, a well-defined bank strikes east from the river for a distance of 250 yds, to a clump of yew trees. There it gives place to a broad, dry ditch, continued in the same direction, and parallel to but outside the city wall, to the Eign Road.'* This Ditch, which is known as the Rowe Ditch, has been erroneously asserted to have been constructed by the Scots Army in 1645. As a fact that Ditch is mentioned in records of the time of Edward I and Henry VIII, and therein called the ' Rough Ditch,' and ' Rowe Ditch.' By a converse error some entrenchments on the opposite bank of the river, which may have been made by the Scots Army, have been recently given the name of Rowe Ditch, which does not belong to them. At a few yards beyond the eastern end of this Rowe Ditch, the Eign Road, from the brook crossing, has on its right a well-formed dike, which continued along the cliff called the Vineyard, with ancient thorn trees ; but this has been of late years to a great extent removed for building operations. Much flattened, it can still be seen crossing the grounds of Titley Court to the Mordiford Road near the ' Franchise Stone ' ; and thence to the Lugg Bridge the road is partly on the Dike, and at other times has it on one side or the other. Beyond the Lugg it can be seen in the grounds of Old Sufton (compare Soughton in Flint which the Dike traverses), and passing by 'the Rough ' at Mordiford Cockshoot and 'Clouds' (qy. Brit. Clawdd), where the work is very' distinct, it is again for a time obliterated ; but reappears, though faintly, across Park Farm, through Park Coppice, and in Devereux Park. It then struck up to the Putley Cockshoot on Marcle Ridge (A.S. mearc-leah, the land of the Mark). At this point it turned south ; and from here one of the best preserved portions can be traced for a length of i J miles along the Ridge, almost on the edge of the escarpment overlooking the Woolhope valley, as far as the Cherry Orchard, south of Oldbury Camp. Here, in order to gain the lower ground, the work takes the form of a ditch of great depth ; from Westnors End to Barrel Hill Green it is absorbed by the road. Then across fields and through Yatton Wood it gains the top of Perrystone Hill and strikes down to the Old Gore. Here it is well seen on the east side of the road leading into the Ledbury to Ross Road, which from the junction to the bridge over the Rudhall Brook at Ross is practically on the line of the Dike. At first it is thereby elevated above the adjoining lands after the manner of the Fosse Way ; at Park Farm the Dike is to be plainly seen on the right side of the road ; further on the road has been cut down and the Dike thereby obliterated ; but at Over Ross it forms a causeway on the left side of the road. Whether it was formed across what is now the site of the town of Ross it is impossible to say. Commencing again at Cleeve on the south-west of the town, and analogously to the work at Hereford, a deep ditch, now partly a lane, struck across through the part called, since at least the i6th century, Duxmere [dic-mcer, the Dike boundary), to the Vine Tree Inn in the Wal- ford Road. Beyond this no certain trace is found until a bank forming a hedge- ^ It is not improbable that there was also a bank here which was removed when the city wall was built. 260
