Monument record MDO3507 - Combs Ditch, Anderson

A linear bank and ditch. Limited excavation suggests that its latest form is a late Roman construction, at which time it may have had a defensive function. It developed from a prehistoric, possibly Bronze Age or Iron Age, field boundary which was later enlarged. The long linear earthwork is visible as low earthworks on lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM.

Combs Ditch, ST 85050217 to ST 88710000, a linear dyke some 2 3/4 miles long, occupies a tactical position on a broad ridge between the River Stour and the Winterborne brook. It consists of a bank with a ditch on the NE side. The bank varies from 18ft to 28ft in width and from 1 1/2ft to 4 1/2ft in height above ground, reaching a maximum of 7 1/2ft above the present ditch bottom E of East Down Plantation. The ditch varies in width from 16ft near the SE end to 28ft at the NW end, averaging about 23ft for much of its length. The ends of the dyke are not entirely convincing, and it may originally have been longer than it is now. A counterscarp bank by East Down Plantation, up to 22ft wide and 3 1/2ft high, is separated from the ditch by a berm 9ft wide. NW of Great Coll Wood, in Spetisbury parish, a 40 yd length of bank, 15ft wide and 2ft high, on the outer lip of the ditch, is less certainly an original feature. (For further details, see annotated plan). Excavations by RCHM in 1965 showed that the dyke was prehistoric in origin, but of a late Roman or later period in its final form. The scale of the earliest structure suggests that the dyke was originally no more than a boundary, but by the end of the Roman period it had become a formidable defensive earthwork, and there can be little doubt that it represents a further line of defence of Romano-British Dorset after Bokerley Dyke had been broken down by the Saxons. It probably lasted only for a short time as a line of defence, for the Saxons appear to have reached the Dorchester area soon after AD 650. <4-5> The long linear prehistoric earthwork is visible as low earthworks on lidar imagery <6> running along the Combs Ditch. It comprises an intermittent bank and ditch and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM. It runs for over 4km from ST 85111 02129 in the northwest to ST 88705 0000 in the southeast.

Record last edited

Jan 15 2024 12:18PM