Banks and ditch at Glebe Farm

Reasons for Designation

Minchinhampton Common is unusual in preserving in good condition a landscape which contains a wide range of monuments dating from the prehistoric period to World War II. The Common has been the site of prehistoric fields and defensive sites, medieval and post-medieval roads, hollow ways and turnpike systems, medieval and post-medieval quarrying, a post-medieval warren and World War II defences. Besides containing monuments which are of national importance in their own right, for example The Bulwarks, the Iron Age bank and ditch at Amberley and the post-medieval warren, Minchinhampton Common is important in preserving the relationships between a variety of different types of monument of varying date. Although archaeological landscapes such as this are known in a number of locations, they are generally located in remote upland situations. Minchinhampton Common, by virtue of its continuing status as common land, has survived between two villages (Amberley and Minchinhampton) in an area of high agricultural pressure. The boundary earthwork comprising the banks and ditch at Glebe Farm are part of the complex of Minchinhampton Common earthworks. It is important in that it forms part of a more extensive system of boundaries, not yet fully mapped or understood.

Details

The monument includes a ditch flanked by a bank on each side, situated on the east side of Minchinhampton, some 500m to the east of Minchinhampton Common. It lies slightly off the flat upland plateau on which Minchinhampton is sited. The ditch and banks form an eastern outlier of a complex and diverse spread of earthworks dating from the late prehistoric period to the present day, which represent the changing land use of the area through time. The banks and ditch run parallel in a north east-south west direction for some 200m. The west bank is about 1m high and 8m wide. Fronting the bank on its east side is a flat-bottomed ditch about 1.5m deep. It is about 7m wide at its base and 10m to 12m wide at its top. The east bank is about 0.3m high and 1.4m wide. No dating evidence has been recovered from the monument, but its form and dimensions would indicate that it was intended as a boundary earthwork.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

28527

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Royal Commission on Historical Mons. England, , Iron Age and Romano-British Monuments in the Gloucs. Cotswolds in Ancient and Historical Monuments in the County of Gloucester, Vol. Vol 1, (1976), 81-84

Other
Barber, A, Glebe Farm, Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire Archaeological Eval, (1995)

End of official list entry

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