Summary
The remains of a complex of banks and ditches constructed in the Bronze Age and remodelled during the Iron Age (around 500 BC).
Reasons for Designation
Dray’s Ditches, the remains of a complex of banks and ditches constructed in the Bronze Age and remodelled during the Iron Age (around 500 BC), is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Period: the prehistoric linear earthworks are highly representative of the Bronze Age and Iron Age periods;
* Rarity: as an example of a monument type which is rare nationally and survives as a strong and representative example of its type;
* Documentation: for the records and analysis of the site as a result of excavations undertaken in 1959 and between 1971 and 1972;
* Group value: for its proximity to other contemporary or spatially related scheduled monuments in the wider landscape across north Luton and the Chilterns, including a Neolithic enclosure known as Waulud’s Bank in Luton (NHLE 1015558), Iron Age forts at Ravensburgh Castle (NHLE 1003541) and Sharpenhoe (NHLE 1009400), and pre-Roman strip lynchets at Stopsley Common (NHLE 1425022);
* Survival: the linear earthworks are visible as clearly defined cropmarks and soil marks on aerial photography, and as above-ground earthworks, most prominently in the area around South Bedfordshire Golf Club;
* Potential: for the buried deposits which have considerable potential to yield information about the site, its multiple phases of construction and the social and economic organisation of the communities that built them. Buried environmental evidence can also inform us about the landscape in which the monument was constructed.
History
Linear boundaries are substantial earthwork features comprising single or multiple ditches and banks which may extend over distances ranging from a few tens of metres to more than 80km. They survive as earthworks or as linear features visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs or as a combination of both. Evidence of excavation and study of associated monuments demonstrate that their construction spans from the Neolithic period onwards in the British Isles. Natural boundaries such as watercourses and escarpments have been supplemented by artificial boundaries, often formed by a ditch and bank (the bank sometimes topped by an additional barrier, such as a timber palisade or hedge). Although many examples have been levelled by later land use, a considerable number still survive as upstanding earthworks, while some major examples have acquired proper names that are still used and appear on Ordnance Survey maps. Some boundaries thousands of years old still play a role in structuring the physical and administrative layout of the landscape in the present day, demonstrating that once created, these earthworks were sometimes continuously used, or repeatedly re-used. 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.
It is often difficult to determine whether a particular boundary was used to demarcate land, for defence, for stock-herding, or as a powerful symbol of the prestige of their builders; most boundaries probably served more than one of these functions to varying degrees at different times in their existence. The form, extent and very existence of the artificial boundaries hold considerable archaeological potential and if analysed scientifically can offer vital clues to their purpose, and the social and political ‘map’ at the time they were built. Their reuse and modification can show how that picture changed over time.
Dray’s Ditches comprises a complex of banks and ditches constructed in the Bronze Age and remodelled during the Iron Age (around 500 BC). The evidence of excavation and analogy with associated monuments demonstrates that their construction spans the millennium from the Middle Bronze Age, although they may have been reused later. They are one of a series of such earthworks known along the Chilterns.
Dray's Ditches cut across the Icknield Way (a prehistoric routeway linking the south of England with East Anglia) at an almost right angle. The earthwork originally ran from the steep slope of Warden Hill in the east, to the clay ridge south of Streatley village, which was then wooded and not easily passable. During the Roman period (AD 43 onwards), the ditches silted up sufficiently to allow free movement along the Icknield Way; iron horse- and ox-shoes, and Roman coins, were found in the wheel ruts.
The site was first documented in 1540 by John Leland when he wrote ‘in hye way I saw hard on eche syde 3 long trenches, as they had been for Men of warre’. The course of the ditches is marked on Jefferys map of Bedfordshire in 1765 as ‘Drays Ditche’, and on a 1774 map between Great Bramingham and Old Bedford Road. When the New Bedford Road was built in the 1830s, it was reported that ‘a number of earthenware pots and urns, such as were used by Romans for enclosing ashes of the dead, and some pieces of iron of singular shapes, etc and a few Roman coins were found here.’ In his History of Luton (1855) Davis recorded on the north-east side of the farm at Great Bramingham ‘a treble row of ditches, known as Gray’s or Dray’s Ditches, which run in a straight line from Bramingham to Wardon Hill, where they run aslant up the hill.’ In 1868, Bedlam recorded the Icknield Way crossing ‘the old Luton and Bedford road, and at the same spot also several ancient trenches called Gray's Dykes (similar in character to the Royston dykes), which come down in irregular lines of two ditches between three banks, from a tumulus on the Warden Hills, and disappear in a field on the opposite side of the road.’
‘Drays Ditches’ were scheduled as BD1 (NHLE 1003804) in 1924, and the mapping of the scheduling was extended westwards in 1931. Excavations were undertaken by James Dyer in 1959 on the east side of the Bedford Road (now the A6) and as a result the scheduling was extended further west to the A6 in 1960. Excavations indicated that there had been two parallel Bronze Age ditches, these being superseded by Iron Age triple ditches.
Further excavations were undertaken between 1970 and 1971 prior to the construction of a new housing estate (east of the A6 and south of Dray’s Ditches) and a by-pass road. In 1971 fourteen sections were cut across the dykes, and a large area was stripped at the point where the Icknield Way was believed to have crossed the dykes. These excavations found the presence of two parallel Bronze Age ditches with flat bottoms and vertical sides which were superseded by three parallel V-shaped Early Iron Age ditches, measuring around 4.5m wide and 2m deep, with banks in between, with an overall width of around 30m. The central and southern ditches were found to be separated by a substantial double palisade, each palisade having three rows of posts, each post around 30cm in diameter and spaced at 61cm intervals, with the second line around 1m behind. Pottery from the ditches was sparse, but one sherd suggested an early Iron Age date. At the point where the Icknield Way was thought to have crossed, the ditches were found to have been continuous when constructed. However, by Roman times the ditches had silted up and the road did cross at the expected point, metal cartwheels having cut a hollow way some three feet into the chalk at this point. In the C17 two of the ditches were recut as a field boundary. A ditch along the western foot of Galley Hill, marked on 6-inch Ordnance Survey maps as ‘Dray’s Ditch’ proved by excavation to be an C18 field boundary. Following the 1970s excavations it was proposed to extend the scheduling north of the bridleway on the east side of the A6, and south of the bridleway on the west side of the A6 near Great Bramingham Farm where the earthworks were visible as a cropmark; these extensions were separately scheduled as LU1 (NHLE 1004534) in 1973.
South Bedfordshire Golf Club was established around Galley and Warden Hills from the late C19, and a golf course and clubhouse are shown west of Warden Hill on the 1960 OS map. In 1974 the club constructed a new clubhouse at the south-western base of Galley Hill, laid out a new golf course, and two car parks within the scheduled site south of the new clubhouse. Part of the earthworks south-west of Galley Hill appear to have been levelled at that time, with holes 8 and 18 cut across the ditches.
Turnpike Drive, the housing development east of the A6, was constructed in the early 1970s and is shown on the 1974 OS map. The housing development west of the A6 and south of Great Bramingham Lane was constructed in the 1990s. Non-invasive Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) survey data has been used to confirm the locations and forms of the earthworks in 2025.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: Dray’s Ditches comprises the remains of a complex of banks and ditches constructed in the Bronze Age and remodelled during the Iron Age (around 500 BC). The site is located around 5km north of Luton; historically the land formed part of the wastelands of the medieval Manor of Luton and now straddles the administrative boundary between Bedfordshire and Luton. The linear earthworks measure around 2.4km in length and run east from Great Bramingham across the A6 (Barton Road) to South Bedfordshire Golf Club, from where they turn north and run along the west slope of Galley Hill, before they turn west to meet the Icknield Way.
DESCRIPTION: The linear earthwork, measuring around 2.4km in length, comprises: a length of around 530m running east from Great Bramingham (around TL 07499 26612, 135m AOD) along the north and south sides of Great Bramingham Lane to the A6 (around 120m AOD); a length of around 560m running east from the A6 to South Bedfordshire Golf Club (around TL 08559 265563, 135m AOD); and a length of around 300m running east to a height of around 150m AOD, from where the earthworks turn north and roughly follow the 150m AOD contour for around 880m through South Beds Golf Club and Galley and Warden Hills Nature Reserve along the west slope of Galley Hill to around TL 0911202 27099, from where the earthwork runs west for around 120m to meet the Icknield Way (around TL 09003 27149, 140m AOD).
West of the A6, the Iron Age ditches are not visible on the surface but are visible on aerial photography as a cropmark indicating their survival below the ground surface. North of Great Bramingham Lane the earthworks are visible on Lidar in the field between Strawberry Cottage and the A6. South of Great Bramingham Lane the most western part of this section is in an open field, and the eastern part in a sliver of grassed land between the road and a 1990s housing development to the south. The possible remains of a bank are visible as a raised intermittent hedge, standing between around 0.4m and 0.9m high; there is no visible sign of a ditch. The monument is bounded to the south by the garden walls of the houses of Hayton Close and Gatehill Gardens, constructed in the early 1990s.
East of the A6 the earthworks are visible as banks and ditches running parallel along the south side of a bridle path from the A6 east towards South Beds Golf Club. Immediately east of the A6 the bridle path starts as a flat grassed area for around 100m, before it narrows to a footpath bounded on both sides by scrub. North of the bridle path, the north bank and ditch are visible as a cropmark in the adjacent ploughed field. As the bridle path progresses eastwards there is a pronounced ditch running parallel to the south of the path, varying in depth between around 0.5m and 1.5m, flanked by a bank on each side measuring around 0.4m in height. The monument is bounded to the south by the garden fences of the houses of Turnpike Drive, constructed in the early 1970s. Further east the path splits in two with a bank running between the paths. South of the golf club, the monument was cut in the early 1970s to provide services, an access road at TL 08584 26435, car parks and a clubhouse for South Bedfordshire Golf Club (constructed in 1974).
East and north-east of the clubhouse, the earthworks remain visible to varying heights. East of the access road the bank is scrub covered, some 2m wide and stands to a height of between around 0.75m and 1.3m, with little sign of a ditch. It is cut by the 16th hole around TL 09030 26637 and an asphalt path at TL 08910 26404. The bank turns to the north and for the greater part of its length in this area is under mown grass on Golf Club land (owned by the Crown), though also passes into Luton Borough Council land along the west slope of Galley Hill. The golf club is separated from publicly accessible land on Galley Hill by a post-and-wire fence, which both crosses and runs along the earthwork. On the north-east slope of Galley Hill, the bank stands around 1.2m high with a ditch uphill to the east around 0.5m deep. The bank makes a right-angled turn to the west and runs as a double bank around 0.5m high with a 2m-wide ditch in between to where it meets the Icknield Way. Throughout the grounds of the golf course, non-invasive Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) survey data has confirmed the locations and forms of the earthworks.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: The scheduled area is marked on the attached map and includes a 3m buffer zone where possible, which is considered necessary for the support and preservation of the monument.
EXCLUSIONS: The scheduling excludes all fencing, car park, road and track surfaces, steps, signage, concrete blocks, drain covers, and bins, though the ground beneath them is included.
