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.
Details
The monument includes part of the central section of the linear bank and ditch
system known as the Danes' Dyke which, in its entirety, runs from the coast
north of Flamborough Head south for a distance of two and a half miles,
enclosing an area of approximately five square miles of headland. This section
of the monument is situated between the B1255 and the B1229 roads.
The Danes' Dyke is thought to have been constructed in the Bronze Age along
with other linear earthworks on the nearby Yorkshire Wolds. Its name, however,
suggests a later date and it would seem likely that it was reused as a
defensive earthwork both by Iron Age tribes and probably also at some point in
the late ninth and tenth centuries AD. The dyke effectively cuts off the
Flamborough peninsula, which is also naturally defended on all sides by steep
chalk cliffs, converting it into a promontory fort. The area thus enclosed is
large enough and has sufficient resources, to support a sizeable community,
with sources of fresh water available.
Throughout most of its length the dyke has a single bank and ditch, although
in places additional stretches of parallel bank and ditch also exist.
Continuing north from the extreme southernmost portion, the monument continues
as triple banks for a short distance, a feature thought to be indicative of
the existence of an original entrance here, after which it reduces again to
double banks.
The earthern ramparts vary in height according to the immediate topography of
the terrain, from around 3m to over 4m in height on the east side to over 12m
on the west side where it is exaggerated by the presence of the ditch, which
continues to be deep and wet in places.
There are old gravel workings which have disrupted the system over a length of
around 20m.
Northward to the B1229, the system again becomes a single bank and ditch
earthwork.
Although the sections of the dyke system across the Flamborough peninsula abut
each other, for purposes of clarity and administration, the sections have been
defined as separate schedulings.
The modern paved surface of both the B1255 and the B1229 are excluded from the
scheduling, although the ground beneath them, representing the surviving
buried ditch deposits, is included. All modern post and wire fences separating
the monument from the farmland which bounds it to the east and west are also
excluded from the scheduling, althouth the ground beneath them is included.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
26507
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Books and journals Other
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
