If you have any comments or new information about this record, please email us.

Summary

Possible causeway from Kyme to Anwick

Full description

62535
There is conjectural evidence that a causeway, dating possibly as far back as the Bronze Age, ran along what is now the A153 from Anwick to Kyme. This causeway is thought to have formed part of a ritual and symbolic landscape in the Witham Valley dating from the Bronze Age and extending into the sixteenth century. What is probably the same route is documented in a charter of 1154, and this may always have been the route from Sleaford and the Slea Valley to Horncastle and the Bain Valley, and was probably always on raised causeways. It is suggested that the causeways did not hinder navigation along the river, but that they had a gap in the middle which was crossed by ferry.
Like the other possible causeways in the Witham Valley there is evidence that there are or were Bronze Age barrows close to the conjectured line of the causeway (Anwick barrow cemetery 60315, possible round barrow at North Kyme 60328). There are also high numbers of high status finds from the area which are thought to be votive offerings (including a large number of bronze axeheads from South Kyme).
Also, like the other conjectured causeways there appears to be an early monastic site at Kyme as well as the twelfth century Augustinian Priory. The locations of these establishments are thought to represent the 'conversion' and guardian ship of the important spiritual and ritual significance of the area to the Christian tradition. {1}

<1> David Stocker and Paul Everson, 2003, ‘The Straight and Narrow Way: Fenland Causeways and the Conversion of the Landscape in the Witham Valley, Lincolnshire’, in The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD300-1300, pp.271-88 (Article in Monograph). SLI8111.

Monument Types

• CAUSEWAY (Early Bronze Age to Medieval - 2200 BC to 1539 AD)
• CAUSEWAY (Medieval - 1154 AD to 1539 AD)

Sources and further reading

Related records

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.