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Summary - not yet available

Monument Type(s):

• DITCH (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• POND (Medieval - 1066 AD? to 1539 AD?)
• DESERTED SETTLEMENT (Medieval - 1066 AD? to 1539 AD?)
• RIDGE AND FURROW (Medieval - 1066 AD? to 1539 AD?)
• TRACKWAY (Medieval - 1066 AD? to 1539 AD?)
• ENCLOSURE (Medieval - 1066 AD? to 1539 AD?)
• HOUSE PLATFORM (Medieval - 1066 AD? to 1539 AD?)
• BANK (EARTHWORK) (Medieval - 1066 AD? to 1539 AD?)

Protected Status:

• SHINE (Unvalidated): Shrunken Medieval village containing ridge and furrow, trackways and rectangular enclosures, Westwick, Oakington and Westwick

Full description

1. Farm meadow. Rectilinear ditches in grass, adjacent to Oakington Brook.
2. ? DMV (NB: good snow effects on AP)(R Palmer 08/02/1984, CUCAP AP CFK 11 used)
3. Ridge and furrow, raised trackway, scarp banks, ponds, platforms and enclosures.
4. MPP Record NO. CB 140/50
O1, Banks as earthworks approx 1,00m high in places. Unploughed and quite impressive features which definitely need surveying with a view to scheduling. Probably Medieval in origin.

5. A medieval moat and other medieval/post medieval settlement and landscape management features belonging to the village of Westwick are visible as earthworks on lidar and air photographs, centred at TL 4193 6522.

The focus of the settlement features lie to the north of Station Road, west of Westwick farm. These comprise a moat, possible buildings or platforms, field boundaries and ridge and furrow. The moat is broadly rectilinear in plan with rounded corners and has maximum internal dimensions measuring 85m by 35m. The moat doesn't appear to have made a complete circuit, the north-east element dominated by a rectilinear bank, possibly building footings. A series of drainage/field boundary/water channel features extend to the north and east. Ridge and furrow immediately north of the moat is heavily truncated by a post medieval quarry measuring 0.95ha. The eastern element of the earthworks here, adjacent to the moat, appear to be largely disturbed, possibly partly through the construction of a later raised trackway/carriageway.

To the south of the road a series of water channels are visible. The main channel, comprising a central ditch flanked by banks and orientated approximately north-west to south-east with a bend in the centre, appears to have been an older course of the drain which still exists here. This may possibly has been associated with a mill site. A more sinuous off-shoot of this extends in the direction of the moat and may have been the original moat feed. Ridge and furrow and ditched field boundaries are also visible here.

The area is marked by small-scale extraction, some of which may be associated with a later phase of the settlement. Most of the earthworks are extant on the latest 2014 oblique photography.

Aerial Photographs of the shrunken medieval village, Westwick (Aerial Photograph). SCB20099.

<1> Phillips, C.W. (ed.), 1970, The Fenland in Roman times: studies of a major area of peasant colonization with a gazetteer covering all known sites and finds, 201 (Bibliographic reference). SCB17783.

<2> Untitled Source (Aerial Photograph). SCB3787.

<3> Untitled Source (Aerial Photograph). SCB2326.

<4> 1995, Monuments Protection Programme Database (printout for SMV's) (Digital archive). SCB17573.

<5> SW Cambridgeshire project 2014 (NHPP), 2016, LIDAR TL4165 DSM 16-OCT-2010, 1590169 (Geospatial data). SCB47709.

Sources and further reading

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