Neolithic enclosures at Grey's Farm, Horseley Fen
List Entry Summary
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.
Name: Neolithic enclosures at Grey's Farm, Horseley Fen
List entry Number: 1009993
Location
The monument may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
County: Cambridgeshire
District: Fenland
District Type: District Authority
Parish: Chatteris
National Park: Not applicable to this List entry.
Grade: Not applicable to this List entry.
Date first scheduled: 15-Dec-1994
Date of most recent amendment: Not applicable to this List entry.
Legacy System Information
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System: RSM
UID: 20805
Asset Groupings
This list entry does not comprise part of an Asset Grouping. Asset Groupings are not part of the official record but are added later for information.
List entry Description
Summary of Monument
Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.
Reasons for Designation
Very few large, rectilinear enclosures of demonstrable Neolithic date have
been recorded or investigated in England. The purposes for which such
enclosures were constructed and used probably varied, but may have included
stock management as well as domestic occupation, ceremonial activity and
possibly defence. Because of their extreme rarity and great age, all such
enclosures with surviving earthworks along with those which retain
sub-surface remains of good quality are considered to be nationally important.
The Neolithic enclosures at Grey's Farm survive well and, in that parts of the
earthworks remain visible, are unique of their kind in eastern England. The
monument will retain rare archaeological information concerning the
construction and use of the enclosures, and evidence of domestic activity and
farming, as well as of the local environment at the time, will be contained in
deposits in the ditches and in features beneath the turf and ploughsoil in the
interior of the enclosures. The proximity of the enclosures to other features
known to be of Neolithic and Bronze Age date, adds further interest.
History
Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.
Details
The monument includes parts of three contiguous Neolithic enclosures, defined
by interconnecting ditches. It is located on a terrace of clayey gravel which
was above the peat fen during the earlier prehistoric period, but buried
beneath it by the first millennium BC. Two of the enclosures are situated
c.130m apart, with the third enclosure partly defined between them. The ditch
around the eastern side of the largest, western enclosure is also accompanied
by the remains of an internal bank. The southern part of the ditch on the
east side of the western enclosure remains visible as an earthwork under
pasture. Elsewhere the ditches have become completely infilled, but survive as
buried features which have been traced by soil and crop marks, visible on the
ground and from the air.
The western enclosure measures at least 290m south east - north west. The
ditch along the eastern side runs SSW - NNE for a distance of c.280m, turning
westward to form a gently curving northern boundary which is distinct for a
distance of c.160m. Sampling of the ditch on the east side has demonstrated
that it is up to 1.5m deep, with infill deposits to a depth of up to 1.35m,
and that along the bottom there is a slot which held a palisade. The southern
end is visible for a distance of c.150m as a linear hollow, c.0.25m deep and
3m wide in the ground surface. The slight spread remains of a bank c.7.5m wide
run around the inner edge of the ditch. In the angle between the eastern and
northern ditches is an internal rectangular, ditched enclosure measuring
c.150m north-south by c.75m east-west. Above this and to the west of it,
evidence of Neolithic occupation has been found, including fragments of
pottery, flint implements, bone and burnt stone.
The second principal enclosure, to the east, is roughly rectangular and has
dimensions of c.85m by at least 230m, aligned north-south. A slightly
curving east-west ditch connects the eastern ditch of the first enclosure
and the western ditch of the second so as to form the northern boundary of the
third.
The enclosures are the most prominent of a series of features, some of them
ceremonial in character, which have been revealed by crop marks within an area
of c.68ha and are dated by their context to the Neolithic or Bronze Age
periods.
All boundary fences within or bordering the area of the scheduling are
excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
Selected Sources
Books and journals
Hall, D N, Palmer, R, Fenland Evaluation Project: Cambridgeshire, (1990)
Leah, M, Mathews, M, Fenland Evaluation Project: Norfolk, (1990)
Hall, D, 'East Anglian Archaeology' in The Fenland Project No.6: The South-western Cambridgeshire Fens, , Vol. 56, (1992), 84
Other
CUCAP RC8-EC 236-237,
RCHME TL4083/2/76-77, TL4183/1/190-191, /3/3/269-272, /6/100-102,
National Grid Reference: TL 41158 83267
Map
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This copy shows the entry on 23-Apr-2018 at 02:12:51.
End of official listing