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 closely associated with these other adjacent complexes of linear
banks and ditches, which together form an integral system of boundary and
defensive earthworks in this region. 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 an 80m section of Bronze Age linear boundary bank and
ditch (also known as a dyke) in Stable Plantation, orientated east-west at
the junction of Greenwick Dale and Tun Dale.
Lying close to an ancient trackway on the western side of the Wolds, the
surviving part of which forms the present-day Wolds Way, the monument forms a
relatively short section of an elaborate complex of boundary dykes between
Millington and Huggate Wolds and Huggate Pasture, single components of which
run either along the top of the escarpment, or part the way down the sides of
the intervening dry valley systems of Frendal Dale and Tun Dale, south in the
direction of Pasture Dale, Millington Dale and Cow Moor, or north and west
towards Millington Wold and Millington Lings, linking up with the 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, adjacent monuments may physically abut. This
elaborate complex of boundary earthworks is one of the best preserved remnants
of the original more extensive systems recorded and mapped by early
antiquarians such as J R Mortimer in the 19th century. Excavations and
observation 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.
This short section of linear bank and ditch is not a discreet monument, as
neither its eastern or western ends are thought to be original termini, but
are thought to have formed a continuous length of boundary banks and ditches
with other monuments in this area. As such, its original junction with similar
sections of linear bank and ditch to the south in Tun Dale and further east at
the head of Greenwick Dale are now no longer visible.
The bank is up to 3m in width and little more than 0.5m high, with a shallow
`U' shaped ditch along the northern side, 1.25m wide and no more than 0.35m
deep.
Modern post and wire fences 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.
