The Andyke, Bransbury

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.

Although current understanding of the Andyke is incomplete, the earthworks will contain information relating to their construction and to the environment and economy of their period of use. In addition, the earthworks form a highly visible element of the historic landscape.

Details

The monument, which falls into two areas, includes the Andyke, a substantial earthwork over 530m in overall length, which cuts off a low peninsula between the valleys of the River Test on the north and the River Dever (the Wonston Stream) to the south. To the south of the A303 the earthwork includes a bank up to 10m wide and 3m high which contains much flint within its make up. To the east of this is a ditch up to 14m wide and 2m deep, on the eastern side of which are traces of a low bank c.3m wide and up to 0.6m high. A single break in the earthwork, north of its mid point, may mark the position of an entrance designed to provide access to the area of the peninsula defined by it. At its southern end, close to the floodplain of the River Dever, the ditch cannot be traced south of the line of the east-west track from Bransbury. To the north of the A303 the northern terminal of the earthwork is visible as a wide depression, up to 15m wide and 2m deep which runs downslope towards the valley of the River Test. Where not visible on the surface immediately adjacent to the A303, the ditch will survive as a buried feature 15m wide.

The earthwork, which is refered to as `Auntediche' in an Anglo-Saxon charter, has previously been interpreted as the defences of an Iron Age promontory fort. Current understanding of the monument does not allow this interpretation to be verified and the scheduling is consequently restricted to the earthwork itself.

The line of the earthwork has been breached by the A303 which, at its point of intersection with the Andyke, is in a cutting sufficiently deep to have removed all archaeological deposits. The monument is consequently divided into two areas of protection, separated by the A303 cutting.

Excluded from the scheduling are all fence posts although the ground beneath these features 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.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

26792

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Williams-Freeman, JP, Introduction to field archaeology as illustrated by Hampshire, (1915), 245-6

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