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 a discontinuous linear dyke extending east to west for
2.1km below the edge of the escarpment forming the south of the Vale of
Pickering. It is divided into seven separate areas. The dyke includes a bank
up to 6m wide and 0.7m high with a ditch lying to the north up to 4m wide and
0.6m deep. At the eastern end the dyke widens to include a double ditch with
intervening banks, a total width of 70m. The dyke broadly follows the contour
of the hillside. It is cut through in several places by forest tracks and
hollow ways. To the west, it ends in a forest plantation and its full
extent cannot yet be determined. To the east, it ends at a cultivated field
where it has been reduced by agricultural activity although it survives as an
earthwork a further 550m to the east where it is the subject of a separate
scheduling. This section of dyke is part of a wider system of boundaries
extending across the Vale of Pickering. Other dykes extend north to south.
They divided the terrain into discrete units for social and agricultural
purposes.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
28204
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
