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 c.500m long section of the prehistoric linear boundary
earthwork known as the Devil's Ditch, running north-south and marking the
eastern boundary of Pepper Hill Firs to the south west of Lower Wyke Farm.
This surviving section of earthwork is part of a more extensive complex of
linear boundaries within the immediate area, the majority of which are no
longer visible as earthworks but which survive as buried features visible
on aerial photographs.
On the edge of Pepper Hill Firs the earthwork includes a bank up to 1.2m high,
the eastern edge of which has been buried under ploughwash and the overall
width of which can be calculated as approximately 8m. On the west side of the
bank is a ditch approximately 12m wide and 0.7m deep and beyond this a low
counterscarp bank which varies from 4m to 6m in width and is up to 0.3m high.
The form of the earthwork and its relationship to the complex of which it is a
part to other landscape features suggest that it is of later prehistoric date.
As a prominent landscape feature it has been utilised as the boundary between
the parishes of Smannell and St Mary Bourne.
Excluded from the scheduling are all fence posts and electricity supply poles
although the ground beneath these features is included.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
26791
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Books and journals
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
