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

See our extensive range of 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

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
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

Pit alignments running NE and SW centring 320yds (300m) N of Wychnor Bridge

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1006095
Date first listed:: 27-Feb-1975

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:: 1006095
Date first listed:: 27-Feb-1975

Location

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

County:: Staffordshire
District:: East Staffordshire (District Authority)
Parish:: Wychnor
National Grid Reference:: SK 18682 16477

Summary

Pit alignments 300m north of Wychnor Bridges Farm.

Reasons for Designation

A pit alignment is a linear arrangement of fairly closely spaced pits which vary in shape from round, through to oval, to rectangular. Nearly all pit alignments have been discovered by aerial photography and sometimes occur as part of a more complex linear earthwork including linear ditches, slots, palisades and linear banks. Pit alignments are among a fairly wide range of monuments of later prehistoric date and although little is known about their function and significance, they are believed to be related to division of the agricultural and political landscape. Linear boundaries are of considerable importance for the analysis of land use in the later prehistoric period; all well preserved samples will normally merit statutory protection.

The pit alignments 300m north of Wychnor Bridges Farm survive as a series of buried archaeological deposits. They are spatially associated with other prehistoric remains in the area. Additional features associated with the alignment are likely to survive. The buried remains will also provide valuable information relating to the landscape within which they were originally excavated and will contribute to our understanding of land use in later prehistoric society.

History

See Details.

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 6 July 2015. 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 includes linear pit alignments situated approximately 1km north of the confluence of the rivers Trent and Tame. At least two pit alignments have been identified as cropmarks from aerial photographs. Both are defined as a single row of pits aligned approximately north east to south west. The monument is believed to represent a double-row alignment dating to the Iron Age period which marks off the Catholme Ceremonial Complex to the east. The river valleys of the Trent and Tame are known to have been an area of activity during the prehistoric period and north of the confluence of the two rivers appears to have been a focus for the development of a late Neolithic and early Bronze Age ceremonial landscape. One of the prominent features of the area is the existence of major Iron Age linear boundaries represented by pit alignments and continuous ditches. The Roman road of Ryknild Street ran on a similar alignment immediately to the east of the monument.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: ST 211
Legacy System:: RSM - OCN

Sources

Websites
Where Rivers Meet: Landscape, Ritual, Settlement and the Archaeology of River Gravels, 2006, accessed 2009 from http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?where_rivers_meet_eh_2006
Other
Pastscape: 929447, HER: DST5594 & NMR: SK 11 NE 124

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.