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Summary

A curvilinear bank ditch of probable Bronze Age date, known as the Cross Dyke, has been recorded by field and aerial survey as a discontinuous earthwork circa 600m long on the south-west facing slopes of Lee Moor. The bank is clearly identifiable on aerial photographs of the 1940s, visualisations derived from lidar data captured in 2013 and digital images derived from aerial photographs of 2016. The Plym Valley survey of 2002 identified a further curviliniear boundarywork extending this feature north and westwards for over 1 kilometre. It forms the south and eastern edges of a large enclosure of at least 100 hectares to the south-east of Great Trowelsworthy Tor.

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1010811: Cross Dyke reave

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX56SE84
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 439346
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX56SE/226
• Old SAM Ref: 10611

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• BOUNDARY DITCH (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 701 BC)
• REAVE? (Bronze Age - 2200 BC to 701 BC (Between))
• BANK (EARTHWORK) (Constructed, Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (Between))

Full description

Royal Air Force, 1946, RAF/3G/TUD/UK/223, RAF/3G/TUD/UK/223 Vp2 5143-5144 12-JUL-1946 (Aerial Photograph). SDV352279.

A curvilinear ditch is visible as an earthwork.

Royal Air Force, 1946, RAF/CPE/UK/1890, Devon County Council RAF/CPE/UK/1890 2292-2293 10-DEC-1946 (Aerial Photograph). SDV169268.

A curvilinear ditch is visible as an earthwork.

Fleming, A. + Collis, J. + Jones, R. L., 1973, A Late Prehistoric Reave System near Cholwich Town, Dartmoor, 5, figs 1, 2b plan (Article in Serial). SDV358808.

Known lenth: 600 m.
Start of dyke (at cairn): SX 58496400
End of dyke: SX 58266343
This runs approximately north-east to south-west from the cairn SX 585640, past the standing stone, to disappear in the bogs north of Cholwich Town china-clay pit. It is aligned on and therefore presumably later than, both the cairn and the standing stone, but otherwise there is no dating evidence.
At its northern end it appears as a low bank resembling a reave running up to and apparently partly over-riding the flat-topped cairn. The northern edge of the cairn has been sliced away, and the whole area between the cairn and Cholwich Town reave to the north-east has been churned up by trackways and erosion channels. At the point of junction of the reave and the projected line of the cross dyke there is particularly heavy disturbance removing the southern edge of the reave. It is thus possible that the dyke continued up to the reave and has been totally destroyed between the cairn and the reave, but on balance it seems more likely that it terminated at the cairn.
Adjacent to the cairn the bank seems to be constructed of stone, but elsewhere it is made of soil. The bank is only preserved for a couple of metres south of the cairn before it runs into another area of tracks and erosion channels. When it reappears, the bank is accompanied on its eastern side by a shallow ditch which, as the earthwork proceeds south, gradually becomes the dominant feature. Almost everywhere that the earthwork survives between the cairn and the standing stone the bank is visible, but south of the stone there is only the occasional hint of its existence. North of the stone the ditch runs into a patch of granite boulders which proved too much for the builders, so that it was abandoned for a few metres.
The ditch runs on a line just to the west of the stone. but there is a gap of some 8 metres either side of it. At this point someone standing on the cairn is just visible, but at its present angle the stone is not visible from the cairn. South of the stone the ground slopes steeply to the south, and the earthwork runs down it in the form of a wide sharp-sided ditch which has apparently been deepened by water erosion. Periodically the ditch fades away, only to reappear further down the slope as a deep gash up to a metre in depth. In places large boulders protrude from the bottom of the ditch. At the bottom of the slope there is an area of raised bog into which the ditch disappears.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1977, SX56SE84 (Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Card). SDV152981.

(31/08/1977) SX 5848 6398 to SX 5819 6348. The bank has a maximum height of 0.3m and the ditch gradually deepens from 0.2m in the north to 0.8m in the south. At SX 5824 6348 the ditch is sectioned by a deep trench, cut for the clay pit, and measures 1.4m deep, and 4.3m wide at the top with a flat bottom 0.8m wide. The bank and ditch is associated with the cairn (SX 56 SE 8) and standing stone (SX 56 SE 36). Surveyed at 1:10 000 on PFD/AO Model.
On Fleming's plan, to the south of the standing stone the feature has been plotted on the wrong side of his baseline.
SX 583 365. The dyke sectioned by a new leat on the 1025ft contour in 1978 proved to be 2.5m wide at the top and 2m deep with steep sides and rounded base.

Fleming, A., 1978, The Dartmoor Reaves, 97-123 (Article in Monograph). SDV244362.

Smith, K. + Coppen, J. + Wainwright, G. J. + Beckett, S., 1981, The Shaugh Moor Project; Third Report - Settlement and Environmental Investigations, 238-40; illustration (Article in Serial). SDV173752.

A section of the cross-dyke was excavated in 1980 where a leat cuts it, at SX 5829 6353. The ditch is U-shaped, but the suggestion of a recut in the western half is probably the result of differential excavation originally. There is also slight evidence for a bank on the western side of the ditch, as in the northern half of the cross-dyke. In its original state, it would have adequately fulfilled any sub-dividing function, such as that postulated by Fleming.

Balaam, N. + Smith, K. + Wainwright, G., 1982, The Shaugh Moor project: fourth report - environment, context and conclusion, 250 (Article in Serial). SDV260579.

Linear ditch at watershed of Blacka Brook and Tory Brook. Discontinuous stretches of accompanying bank. Post-dates the cairn and standing stone (see Fleming / Ordnance Survey) but disappearance into raised bog suggests it is of Bronze Age date.

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1985, Aerial Photograph Project (Dartmoor) - Dartmoor Pre-NMP (Cartographic). SDV319854.

Visible on aerial photographs (no photo references given) and recorded on map overlay.

Butler, J., 1994, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities: Volume Three - The South-West, Map 51 (Monograph). SDV137656.

Depicted as a medieval or later boundarywork by Butler.

Robertson, J. G., 1994, The Archaeology of the Upper Plym Valley (Post-Graduate Thesis). SDV139549.

Depicted and described as a questionable prehistoric feature by Robertson.

Bluesky International Ltd/Getmapping PLC, 1999-2017, Pan Government Agreement Aerial Photographs, Next Perspectives APGB Imagery SX5863 31-MAY-2016 (Aerial Photograph). SDV363087.

A curvilinear ditch is visible as an earthwork.

Probert, S. A. J. + Fletcher, M. J., 2002, Plym Valley survey (Report - Survey). SDV350782.

(05/04/2002) This feature has been adaquately described in the densly vegetated section between SX 5824 6353 and SX 5850 6401 by Fleming (1973), Ordnance Survey (1977) and Smith etc al (1981). However an additional 1.1 kilometre of this boundarywork is visible as a curving line in the open moorland between SX 5843 6421 and SX 5791 6490. It forms the south and eastern edges of a large enclosure of at least 100 hectares to the south-east of Great Trowelsworthy Tor.
The additional length of this feature possesses a well-defined external ditch and cuts the Willings Walls Reave at SX 5821 6495. There is little doubt that this bank and ditch date from the medieval or later periods and may well represent the boundary of Willings Walls Warren.

NERC, 2013, LiDAR DTM data (1m resolution) Tellus: South Devon to Dartmoor, LIDAR SX5863 Tellus DTM 01-JUL-2013 to 31-AUG-2013 (Cartographic). SDV361514.

A curvilinear ditch is visible as an earthwork.

Hegarty, C., Knight, S. and Sims, R., 2019-2020, The South Devon Coast to Dartmoor Aerial Investigation and Mapping Survey. Area 2, Avon Valley to Plymouth (AI&M, formerly NMP) (Interpretation). SDV362982.

A curvilinear ditch is visible on aerial photographs of 1946 onwards and visualisations derived from lidar data captured in 2013 as a roughly north-north-east to south-south-west aligned discontinuous earthwork circa 3.5 to 5.5m wide and circa 610m long.
A low bank circa 4m wide and 50m long is identifiable flanking the north-western end of the ditch on the lidar derived visualisations but is not identifiable on the available aerial photographs. The available lidar data is not of sufficient resolution to identify such earthworks further to the south.
The ditch appears to be aligned on the cairn MDV2516 at its northern end and The Hanging Stone lithic monument (MDV2423) at circa SX58376369, and therefore probably post-dates these features. The orientation of the ditch changes to more south-westerly south of the standing stone.

Ordnance Survey, 2020, MasterMap 2020 (Cartographic). SDV363413.

The 'Cross Dyke' is depicted on the modern mapping. Runs from SX 5849 6400 to SX 5826 6343.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8148 - The Upper Plym Valley: The Management of an Historic Landscape
• EDV8098 - The South Devon Coast to Dartmoor Aerial Investigation and Mapping (formerly NMP) Survey, Area 2, Avon Valley to Plymouth (Ref: ACD2040)

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