The middest of this shire [Wiltshire] which for the most part lieth plain and even, is divided athwart from East to West, with a dyke of wonderful1 work, cast up for many miles together in length: the people dwelling thereabout call it Wansdyke, which upon an error generally received, they talk and tell to have been made by the Divell upon a Wednesday.’ So wrote John Aubrey in 1663 in his Monumenta Britannica and, since his day, Wansdyke, one of the two mightiest linear earthworks of ancient Britain—the other is Offa’s Dyke—has rightly attracted the admiration and speculation of innumerable antiquaries (PLATE X (a) ).
