Monument record MDO42874 - Iron Age trackway, cross dyke, Grimstone Down, Stratton

Banked and ditched linear features are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs on Grimstone Down, Stratton. The features probably represent an Iron Age trackway or cross dyke (Hob UID 453187). They were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project.

A dyke extends across the ridge to the north of Lawyer's Plantation on the north-east part of Grimstone Down. The best preserved portion of the ditch is 13ft wide and 1 3/4ft deep with remains of a bank on the south-west side measuring about 11ft wide and 1ft high. Traces of a bank to the north east appears to have no association with the original work. <1>

SY 64849617 to SY 65049592. A cross ridge dyke with the terminal points situated well down the slope of the ridge. The ditch averages 6.0m wide and 0.3m deep with a bank to the south averaging 3.0m wide and 0.3m high. An intermittent low bank on the north of the ditch is also visible and at the north east end of the earthwork there is a north-south lynchet belonging to an Iron Age/Romano British field system (see SY 69 NW 38) which terminates on the northern bank of the dyke. Another lynchet extends westwards from the southern bank, suggesting that the dyke was earlier or contemporary with the field system. The dyke has been mutilated by tracks and tree plantations from SY 64929608 to SY 65029601. <2>

A Cross-dyke ploughed out at its western end (in the arable field at SY 648961). Eastwards, within Jackman's Plantation, it appears as little more than an amorphous bank. In the adjoining field at SY 650960 it has been ploughed out but within Kidney Plantation (SY650959) 75.0m. of bank and ditch remain as described by (2). Revised at 1:2500 on MSD. <4>

Banked and ditched linear features are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs on Grimstone Down, Stratton <5>. The features appear to comprise a SE-NW aligned ditch flanked by broken sections of bank on either side. At their NW end the northern bank appears to extend below linear banked boundaries thought to be part of an Iron Age/Romano-British field system, possibly indicating it pre-dates these. The features probably represent an Iron Age trackway or cross dyke (Hob UID 453187). They were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project.

The cross dyke is also visible on 2010 Google Earth imagery <6>.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, 1952, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume I (West), 229 (Monograph). SDO97.

<2> Swatridge, G C, Various, Field Investigators Comments GCS, F1 GCS 27-JAN-55 (Unpublished document). SWX1169.

<3> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 scale map, 1974 (Map). SDO17396.

(SY 64849617 to SY 65049596) Cross Dyke (NR) twice

<4> Attrill, N J, Field Investigators Comments NJA, F2 NJA 11-FEB-81 (Unpublished document). SDO14743.

<5> National Monuments Record, 02-FEB-71, SY6495/10 (NMR285/283) (Aerial Photograph). SDO16864.

<6> Google Earth, XX-XXX-2010, Google Earth 2010 (Aerial Photograph). SDO16568.

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453187 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Nov 2 2023 4:34PM