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.
The monument is part of a very extensive and important system of linear
boundary dykes in this area of the Yorkshire Wolds, dating back to the Bronze
Age. It is very well preserved for much of its length, and can be demonstrated
to form a component part of what was once a much larger system of boundary
banks and ditches which enclosed a large tract of territory in this area. As
such it offers important insights into ancient land use and territorial
divisions for social, ritual and agricultural purposes in this area of the
Yorkshire Wolds.
Details
The monument includes a 975m long section of Bronze Age linear boundary bank
and ditch (also known as a dyke), running approximately north west-south east
along York Lane, between Huggate Wold and Huggate Pasture.
Lying close to an ancient trackway running on the western side of the Wolds,
part of which survives today and is known as the Wolds Way, the monument is a
long section of what was once an elaborate complex of boundary dykes between
Millington and Huggate Wolds and Huggate Pasture, single components of which
run either along the tops of the escarpments, or part the way down the sides
of the intervening dry valley systems of Frendal Dale and Tun Dale, south
towards Millington Wold and Millington Lings, linking up with the system of
boundary dykes in those areas. These dykes were used to enhance the natural
topographical barriers of spurs and escarpments between valleys, with
additional physical barriers of banks and ditches. Natural conduits along the
floors of dry valleys were then `blocked' by other bank and ditch systems to
control access.
Well preserved sections of these linear boundaries are the subject of separate
schedulings, and in some cases, may physically abut.
This elaborate complex of Wolds boundary earthworks is one of the best
preserved remnants of the original more extensive system recorded and mapped
by early antiquarians such as J R Mortimer in the 19th century. Excavations
and observations of spatial relationships with other earthworks of known date
demonstrate this Wolds complex of earthworks to have originated in the later
Bronze Age, with several subsequent phases of elaboration and augmentation.
The monument also forms part of a broadly related and extensive complex of
multi-period prehistoric earthworks, including bowl barrows, barrow
cemeteries, linear bank and ditch systems trackways and enclosures, dispersed
across Huggate and Warter Wolds, and Huggate and Millington Pastures. The
monument includes a section of linear bank and ditch, 975m long and 5m wide.
The bank survives to varying heights of between 1m and 1.5m and up to 3m in
width, with a ditch to its eastern side 2m wide and varying between 0.5m and
0.75m deep.
At its northern end, the monument commences around 100m to the south of
Waterman Hole; this is not thought to have been an original terminus as it is
thought that it would once have been linked to a related section of dyke
lying further to the west in Greenwick Dale which is the subject of a separate
scheduling.
The line of this section is not continuous, but is cut by a later field access
trackway close to its centre.
At its southern end, which is thought to be an original terminus, the monument
intersects with the next section of dyke, running west towards Frendal Dale,
to the north of Huggate Pasture, and the complex of multiple banks and ditches
there. The junction of the banks here would have been nearly perpendicular,
but a later period farm trackway has cut across the line of the end of the
monument, and obscured the relationship of these two banks to one another.
Modern post and wire fencing, separating the monument from arable farmland to
the west, and the surface of the paved road to the east, are excluded from the
scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included.
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.
