Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Medieval dylings and flood defence bank at Gold Fen Dike Bank, immediately south west of Ash Cottage

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1017323
Date first listed:: 22-Oct-1998

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1017323
Date first listed:: 22-Oct-1998
Date of most recent amendment:: 17-Jul-2000

Location

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

County:: Lincolnshire
District:: Boston (District Authority)
Parish:: Wrangle
National Grid Reference:: TF 43864 52599

Reasons for Designation

Dylings are medieval fields on the siltlands of the Fens and comprise blocks of strips of cultivated land which were often bordered by droves and dykes. These strips were separated by ditches and were broader than those of the `ridge and furrow' system which is more typical of the uplands. They also differed in that they were ploughed flat, rather than ridged. Very few examples of this distinctive regional pattern of cultivation are known to survive as earthworks in the Fens and all good examples which do survive as earthworks will merit protection.

The medieval dylings and early flood defence bank, immediately south west of Ash Cottage represent one of the best surviving examples of medieval dylings in the fenland. Earthworks and buried archaeological deposits will preserve valuable evidence for medieval farming practice and for the local environment in which it functioned, as well as that which preceded it. The dylings are particularly rare in being associated with the remains of an early fen bank, which preserves information about flood defence in this area over 1000 years ago.

Details

The monument includes the earthwork remains of dylings, a field system of medieval date, located in the fenland 2.2km north east of St Mary and St Nicholas' Church. The dylings lie adjacent to the remains of an early medieval flood defence bank, which is the predecessor of the present Gold Fen Dike Bank. The monument includes the earthwork remains of the early flood defence bank. The dylings take the form of parallel field strips aligned north west to south east and separated by narrow ditches up to 0.5m deep. The strips are about 100m long and vary in width between 20m and 50m, occupying a total area 200m wide. Shallow depressions in some of the strips mark the position of former ponds, and near the centre of the monument is a water-filled pond of later date. The rectangular area occupied by the strips is bounded on each of the long sides by a linear bank 3m-5m wide running at right angles to them, and the whole system is surrounded by a ditch 2m in width. Adjacent to the north western side of the field system, and aligned with it south west to north east, is a broad bank cut along the middle by a shallow ditch. This bank represents the remains of an early flood defence bank believed to have originated in the late Anglo-Saxon period in order to prevent flooding by upland waters from the north west. The alignment of the early bank is followed by the present Gold Fen Dike Bank. All modern fences and gates 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.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 22741
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 Culture, Media and Sport.