Monument record MDO21429 - Kingston Russell: trackway

Trackway of uncertain origin, visible as cropmarks and earthworks.

A dyke extending for about 90 yards across the ridge. The bank is about 12ft. wide and 1ft. high, and it has a ditch on the E. side. <1> (A: SY 57819048 to B: SY 57859038). of a bank 5.0m. wide and 0.2m. high, with a ditch on the N.E side. The ditch is 5.0m. wide, 0.2m. deep, and a growth of nettles and weeds shows it to be silted up to some extent. The direction followed is NW-SE, not across the ridge but at an oblique angle. The earthwork terminates at its S.E. end at a modern field bank on the E side of which is a deeply cut bridle track. The N.W. end fades on the crest of the ridge. The age and type of earthwork could not be deduced with certainty from ground inspection; air photographs were not available for this site. It seems possible that the earthwork is a boundary bank of uncertain age, or an old track which formerly joined the bridle road at the SE. end. <2> Considered to be a boundary bank with contemporary bridle path. <3> When excavated in 1971-3, the bank (auth 2) had been destroyed and only the ditch remained. This was 0.75m wide at the top and 0.5m deep, V-shaped with a rounded base. This ditch joined a double ditch running East-West. The ditches may be LBA boundary markers. <4> Linear ditches visible as slight earthworks and as cropmarks. The recorded features comprise a sinuous but broadly east-west linear ditched feature, jined roughly at its mid-point by a northwest-southeast aligned linear ditch. Immediately adjacent to and southwest of their junction is bowl barrow SY 59 SE 111 and its associated cremation cemetery. Excavation of both ditches in the early 1970s in the immediate vicinity of this barrow revealed little firm dating evidence. The presence of a single sherd of late Iron Age pottery in the upper filling of one of the ditches was taken as an indication that the ditch in question had largely silted up by the end of the Iron Age, although this is far from ideal dating evidence. <7> A sinuous linear feature is visible as cropmarks and earthworks, running along a ridge for 1170m. In places it is defined by two parallel ditches. It is considered to be the line of an ancient trackway, possibly medieval or prehistoric in origin. {1-2}

Record last edited

Aug 24 2023 7:17PM