Tor Dike linear earthwork
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: Tor Dike linear earthwork
List entry Number: 1012003
Location
The monument may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
County: North Yorkshire
District: Craven
District Type: District Authority
Parish: Kettlewell with Starbotton
County: North Yorkshire
District: Richmondshire
District Type: District Authority
Parish: Carlton Highdale
National Park: YORKSHIRE DALES
Grade: Not applicable to this List entry.
Date first scheduled: 14-Jun-1995
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: 24537
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
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.
This is a well preserved and substantial monument which will retain
significant archaeological evidence within its bank and ditch. Unusually it
has a series of broadly contemporary settlements and enclosures abutting it.
Information on the development of the earthwork and its relationship with the
adjacent settlement remains will be preserved.
History
Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.
Details
This substantial linear earthwork is situated across a valley head guarding
access into Coverdale from Upper Wharfedale. It stretches for a length of
approximately 2000m. The western section of the earthwork includes a ditch, 3m
deep and approximately 6m wide, cut into the base of a vertical limestone
scar. Above the ditch on the north side is an earth and stone rampart
averaging 1m high and 3m wide. Sections of the rampart include rough grooves
and pits where stone has been quarried to build the adjacent wall at some time
in the more recent past. Further west the limestone scar peters out and a
shallower and narrower ditch extends discernibly as far as Top Mere Gate.
Where the scar terminates on the east side the line is strengthened and
continued by a substantial rampart averaging 1.8m in height and approximately
4m wide. In places, both on the east and west sides of the monument, the
rampart is abutted by small enclosures and hut circles, with diameters of up
to 20m, of an Iron Age type, which are broadly contemporary in date. Other
enclosures built into the ditch at several points appear to be later.
The field wall running along the edge of the rampart and the surface of the
road crossing the monument 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.
It includes a 5 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
Selected Sources
Books and journals
Beresford, M W, Jones, G R J, Leeds and its Region, (1967), 98
Other
White, R,
National Grid Reference: SD 98136 75477
Map
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This copy shows the entry on 20-Apr-2018 at 09:44:11.
End of official listing