There is a remarkable tradition amongst the peasantry, who state that this fosse*, from one end to the other, was dug by the Devil in a single night, and that retiring to the summit of the downs he there scraped his spade, the mould from which formed the well-known barrow, Cuckhamsley Hill! Others narrate that it is a furrow made by the Devil, who traversed these downs with his plough!
*ie the Devil’s Dyke or Grim’s Ditch.
From ‘The history and antiquities of the hundred of Compton, Berks’ by John Snare, 1844.