Section of the Cleave Dyke system 200m south east of Yorkshire Gliding Club

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.

This section of the Cleave Dyke system is preserved as a prominent earthwork, forming a clear division across the landscape. Significant remains are preserved which will retain important information about the original form and function of the earthwork. This dyke forms a smaller landscape division at right angles to the main spine of the Cleave Dyke. The monument offers important scope for the study of the division of land for social, ritual and agricultural purposes in different geographical areas during the prehistoric period.

Details

The monument includes a section of the prehistoric linear boundary system on the Hambleton Hills, known as the Cleave Dyke. Orientated east to west this section of earthwork lies in a coniferous plantation sloping down to a gill. The dyke has a flat topped bank, 1m high, flanking a broad ditch 6m wide and 0.8m deep lying to the north. The western end has been cut and destroyed by a quarry and the eastern end terminates at a later trackway. The course of the dyke beyond the latter point is not yet known. This monument 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.

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:

26934

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Spratt, D A, The Yorkshire Archaeologial Journal in The Cleave Dyke System, Vol. VOL 54, (), 33-56

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