Cross dyke on Chantry Hill, 470m south of Grey Friars Farm

Overview

Heritage Category: Scheduled Monument

List Entry Number: 1015712

Date first listed: 10-Jul-1997

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

National Park: SOUTH DOWNS

National Grid Reference: TQ 08436 12636

Reasons for Designation

Cross dykes are substantial linear earthworks typically between 0.2km and 1km long and comprising one or more ditches arranged beside and parallel to one or more banks. They generally occur in upland situations, running across ridges and spurs. They are recognised as earthworks or as cropmarks on aerial photographs, or as combinations of both. The evidence of excavation and analogy with associated monuments demonstrates that their construction spans the millennium from the Middle Bronze Age, although they may have been re-used later. Current information favours the view that they were used as territorial boundary markers, probably demarcating land allotment within communities, although they may also have been used as trackways, cattle droveways or defensive earthworks. Cross dykes are one of the few monument types which illustrate how land was divided up in the prehistoric period. They are of considerable importance for any analysis of settlement and land use in the Bronze Age. Very few have survived to the present day and hence all well- preserved examples are considered to be of national importance.

The cross dyke on Chantry Hill survives well, despite some later disturbance, and will contain important archaeological and environmental evidence relating to the construction and use of the monument. The cross dyke is one of a group of broadly contemporary monuments situated along the ridge, providing important evidence for the relationship between burial practices, settlement and land division in this area of downland during the later prehistoric period.

Details

The monument includes a cross dyke constructed across a chalk spur which projects to the north east from a ridge of the Sussex Downs. The roughly north west-south east aligned, gently curving cross dyke survives as a c.125m long ditch measuring c.8m wide and c.0.5m deep, flanked to the north east by a bank up to c.0.5m wide and c.0.5m deep. Towards the centre, a short section of the dyke has been partly disturbed and levelled by long-term use of a downland track. To the north west, the earthworks gradually fade out as the ground falls away. The south eastern end has been destroyed by later, post-medieval chalk quarrying, and this area is therefore not included in the scheduling.

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: 29265

Legacy System: RSM

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 Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.