If it is taken away by
those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays
another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.
Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn
into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the
remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it
appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
promontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench is
purely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side has
been worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have been
deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the
dwellers on the headland a very complete security.
Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been
attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
from Bempton passes through the Dyke.
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