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 the 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 in the Bronze Age; all well
preserved examples will normally merit statutory protection.
Details
The monument is a section of linear earthwork on the Yorkshire Wolds. It
is 200m long and up to 25m wide, and includes two parallel ditches each 5m
wide and 0.5m deep between which is an earthwork bank 0.5m high and 5m
wide. Further earthwork banks of similar height and width flank the outside
of the ditches, although in places the southern bank has been levelled.
Together the various elements form a complex 25m wide.
The linear earthwork originally extended further to both the north east and
south west beyond the ends of the scheduling. To the south west the earthwork
is not clearly visible and the extent of surviving remains is not fully
understood. To the north east a section of the earthwork has been destroyed
by quarrying and the excavation of a pond. Further to the north east another
section of the linear earthwork is visible as an upstanding earthwork and is
the subject of a separate scheduling.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
23830
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Other
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.
End of official list entry
