Linear boundary from south east of Winterbourne Stoke crossroads to south west of The Diamond on Wilsford Down

Reasons for Designation

A small number of areas in southern England appear to have acted as foci for ceremonial and ritual activity during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. Two of the best known and the earliest recognised areas are around Avebury and Stonehenge, now jointly designated as a World Heritage Site. The area of chalk downland which surrounds Stonehenge contains one of the densest and most varied groups of Neolithic and Bronze Age field monuments in Britain. Included within the area are Stonehenge itself, the Stonehenge cursus, the Durrington Walls henge, and a variety of burial monuments, many grouped into cemeteries. The area has been the subject of archaeological research since the 18th century when Stukeley recorded many of the monuments and partially excavated a number of the burial mounds. More recently, the collection of artefacts from the surfaces of ploughed fields has supplemented the evidence for ritual and burial by revealing the intensity of contemporary settlement and land-use. In view of the importance of the area, all ceremonial and sepulchral monuments of this period which retain significant archaeological remains are identified as nationally important.

Linear boundaries are substantial earthwork features comprising single or multiple ditches and banks which may extend over distances varying between less than 1km to more than 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 millenium from the Middle Bronze Age, although they may have been reused 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 which 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. The linear boundary running from south east of Winterbourne Stoke crossroads to south west of The Diamond on Wilsford Down survives well and will contain archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Details

The monument includes a section of linear boundary running from a point 120m south east of Winterbourne Stoke crossroads to a point 220m south west of The Diamond on Wilsford Down, crossing at right-angles a north east-south west combe and heading towards a hilltop on which is located the Lake round barrow cemetery. The monument is part of a complex of boundary earthworks which extend for over 4km from west of Winterbourne Stoke crossroads to Rox Hill in the south east, with extensions north east beyond Normanton Gorse. The section of linear boundary is c.1km in length and consists of a bank 5m wide and c.0.5m high, flanked on its western side by a ditch 5m wide and 0.7m deep. Aerial photographs reveal that it extends some 500m further north west and 320m further south east of the visible section. These latter sections of the boundary have been reduced by cultivation and are now difficult to identify on the ground. A further section of linear boundary marking the southern edge of the Lake barrow group is visible as an earthwork and represents a further extension of this monument beyond the south eastern levelled section. It is too distant to be included in this monument, and is the subject of a separate scheduling. All fence posts are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath them is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

10489

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
RCHME, , Stonehenge and its Environs, (1979), 26
Grinsell, LV, The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume V, (1957), 259

End of official list entry

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