Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

Our expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Crowds flock around the Skylon and Dome of Discovery at the Festival of Britain South Bank Site on 12 May 1951. Both structures were dismantled at the end of the Festival in 1952. Photographer: Aerofilms Ltd, Image reference: Source: Historic England Archive EAW035702
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Linear earthworks in Pear Wood, W of Watling Street

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1001996
Date first listed:: 26-Mar-1974

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1001996
Date first listed:: 26-Mar-1974

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Harrow (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 17173 93499, TQ 17328 93599

Summary

Linear earthwork in Pear Wood, 395m east of Moor House.

Reasons for Designation

Linear boundaries are substantial earthwork features comprising single or multiple ditches and banks which may extend over distances varying between less than 1km to over 10km. They survive as earthworks or as linear features visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs or as a combination of both. The evidence of excavation and study of associated monuments demonstrate that their construction spans at least a millennium from the Middle Bronze Age, although they may have been re-used later. The scale of many linear boundaries has been taken to indicate that they were constructed by large social groups and were used to mark important boundaries in the landscape; their impressive scale displaying the corporate prestige of their builders. They would have been powerful symbols, often with religious associations, used to define and order the territorial holdings of those groups who constructed them. Linear earthworks are of considerable importance for the analysis of settlement and land use from the Bronze Age onwards; all well preserved examples will normally merit statutory protection.

Despite having been part-levelled, truncated and disturbed in the past, the linear earthwork in Pear Wood survives well. It will contain archaeological and environmental information relating to the earthwork and the landscape in which it was constructed.

History

See Details.

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 11 September 2014. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument, which falls into separate areas, includes a linear earthwork denoted by two banks and a ditch in Pear Wood. It is situated across a south-east facing slope of Brockley Hill near Stanmore.

On the north side is a bank and to the south is a V-shaped ditch. A further minor bank is situated south of the ditch. The northernmost bank was originally at least 2m high and the ditch has been recorded through partial excavation to be up to 7m wide and 1.8m deep. However the earthwork has been truncated along parts of its length through gravel extraction and the bank has been levelled in places. The ditch has become part in-filled and largely survives as a buried feature. It is orientated north-east to south-west and follows a linear course for 355m from a point just south-east of Pear Wood Cottages towards Wood Farm. It traverses and gradually ascends the hill in a diagonal route.

The linear earthwork in Pear Wood is possibly an easterly continuation of Grim’s Ditch. In 1948-9, 1954-9 and 1973, the site at Pear Wood was partially excavated but conclusive dating evidence was not obtained. The finds recovered on or in the vicinity of the earthwork included Iron Age and Roman pottery sherds, tile fragments, iron nails, a glass bowl and jar. In 1985, geophysical survey was carried out to investigate whether it was linked to Grim’s Ditch. No evidence was found, although gravel extraction may have removed traces of a join and/or the survey may not have been set to probe deep enough.

Part of the course of Watling Street Roman road, a Romano-British settlement and pottery manufacturing site are the subject of a separate scheduling to the north-east.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: LO 120
Legacy System:: RSM - OCN

Sources

Other
Greater London SMR 052160/00/00, MLO23402, MLO17282. NMR TQ19SE19, TQ19SE13. PastScape 398333, 398315.,

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.