Hill argues that this is back to front: the hidage assessment for a burh should provide a wall-length. He advances his argument to propose that the intention of the Burghal Hidage is to provide a method of doing so not for Wessex but for the newly created burh in the reconquered ‘shires’ of Mercia. Perhaps this is what that formula means attached to ‘A’. Yet if we regard the archetype of ‘B’ as earlier than the end text of this says as follows: