[L., f. vallus stake, palisade.]
1. A wall or rampart of earth, sods or stone, erected as a permanent means of defence; esp. one of those constructed by the Romans in northern England and central Scotland.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit., 790. Wee gather out of Bede, that the said Vallum or Rampier, was nothing else but a wall of turffes.
1699. Temple, Hist. Eng., 38. Agricola began, and in some manner finished, a Wall or Vallum, upon that narrow Space of Land.
1726. A. Gordon, Itin., Sept., 52. Thence the Vallum descends from the above-mentioned Hill, to another Brook.
1781. Warton, Hist. Kiddington, 55. The vallum or ridged bank … crossing the Ikenild-street within two miles of Ewelme.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), II. III. ii. 79. This British Vallum—a vast rampart of earth and stone strengthened by a fosse.
1879. Lubbock, Sci. Lect., vi. 172. He would walk round the ancient vallum,… and wonder at the mechanical skill which could have moved such ponderous masses.
2. In Roman castrametation, a palisaded bank or mound, formed of the earth cast up from the ditch or fosse around a camp or station.
1806. Gaz. Scot., s.v. Crichton, A circular camp or intrenchment, the vallum of which is very distinct.
1816. Scott, Antiq., iv. Nothing can be more plainly traced—a proper agger or vallum, with its corresponding ditch or fossa.
1833. Jas. Davidson, Brit. & Rom. Rem. Axminster, 13. It has been said that this intrenchment had formerly a double vallum,… but no vestiges of the inner vallum remain, if such an one ever existed.
1880. Hodgkin, Italy & Invaders, I. i. I. 120. The usual square form of a Roman camp strengthened by ditch and vallum and palisade.
transf. 1818. Lady Morgan, Fl. Macarthy (1819), II. v. 237. A small dunghill, which usually forms the first vallum to the residence of an Irish peasant.
1829. Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), I. 301. An inner keep or castle, surrounded by a strong wall, beyond which was a ditch or deep fosse,… and beyond this again was raised an outer vallum or rampart.
