Reasons for Designation
The Cleave Dyke system is the most westerly of a series of dyke systems on the
Tabular Hills of north east Yorkshire. The name has been given to a series of
linear ditches and banks stretching north-south over 9km parallel with and
close to the western scarp of the Hambleton Hills. The system was constructed
between the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age to augment the natural division
of the terrain by river valleys and watersheds. Significant stretches remain
visible as upstanding earthworks; elsewhere it can be recognised as a cropmark
on aerial photographs. The system formed a prehistoric territorial boundary in
an area largely given over to pastoralism; the impressive scale of the
earthworks displays the corporate prestige of their builders. In some
instances the boundaries have remained in use to the present day. Linear
boundaries are of considerable importance for the analysis of settlement and
land use in the later prehistoric period; all well preserved examples will
normally merit statutory protection.
Details
The monument includes a section of the Cleave Dyke system, a prehistoric
linear boundary system on the Hambleton Hills, known as the Casten Dike.
Orientated east to west, the linear boundary extends westwards for 90m from
the head of Flassen Gill. At its eastern end it has been truncated by modern
trackways which cut through this area. It is unclear how far it originally
extended at this end. The monument is preserved as a prominent ditch with two
flanking banks. The ditch is 4m wide and up to 0.9m deep. The northern bank is
3m wide and 1.2m high and the southern bank is 3m wide and 0.5m above the
ground to the south and 1.5m above the bottom of the ditch.
This section of earthwork is part of a wider system of prehistoric linear
earthworks continuing for 9km north-south along the western edge of the
Hambleton Hills. Shorter east-west earthworks linked valley heads to the main
dyke and thus divided the terrain into discrete units for agricultural and
social purposes.
The dyke is associated with earlier round barrows which also marked the
division of land. Together the monuments on this area of the Hambleton Hills
provide important evidence of territorial organisation and the development of
settled agricultural practices.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
26924
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Books and journals
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
