Monument record MDO7333 - Cross dyke on Knowle Hill, Church Knowle

A cross ridge dyke is visible as earthworks on aerial photographs on Knowle Hill, Church Knowle.

The bank is 50 yds long, 2-3ft. high and there is one gap, which is modern. Visited 26.11.68 when under rough grass. <1> Visible on air photograph as described above, at SY 93188209. <2> SY 932821. A dyke 150 feet long, probably associated with the Iron Age settlement (SY 98 SW 13), rises diagonally across the ridge from a broken edge on a quarry at the south to the shoulder above the steep slope on the north. The bank is 23 feet across and about 2 1/2 feet above the ditch which is 13 feet wide. The modern ridgeway track crosses it. A sharply defined shelf crossing the ridge 55 yards to the east is modern. <3> SY 935824. "Cross ridge dykes, mound and settlement on Knowle Hill". Scheduled and protected by a Preservation Order. (Includes this dyke). <4> SY 93168207 to SY 93188212. This turf-covered earthen dyke is 50.0m long and a tyical profile measures 0.6m high with an 0.5m deep ditch on the west side. Its southern end has been effaced by ?18/19th century quarrying and its northern end overlaid and effaced by a ridgeway track. The course of the dyke from the north side of this track to the edge of the ridge-top (a distance of 6.5m) can be traced as a vague rise and faint ditch depression. The dyke takes a significant change of direction at the highest point of the ridge-top where it is cut by this track; the evidence suggests that there may have been an original gap here. The break in the bank near its southern end is most probably a later feature because there is no trace of a causeway although the ditch at this point is rather shallow and disturbed. Resurveyed at 1:2500. <5> A cross ridge dyke is visible as earthworks on aerial photographs on the west end of Knowle Hill, Church Knowle <7>. The linear bank and ditched feature was digitally plotted during the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project.

Record last edited

Oct 23 2023 4:46PM