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Monument details

HER Number:TR 25 NW 448
Type of record:Monument
Name:A cropmark trace of a possible ring ditch

Summary

A very faint cropmark trace of a possible ring ditch.


Grid Reference:TR 2187 5868
Map Sheet:TR25NW
Parish:WICKHAMBREAUX, CANTERBURY, KENT

Monument Types

  • RING DITCH? (Bronze Age - 2350 BC to 701 BC)
Protected Status:Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England: A linear Bronze Age barrow cemetery, 150m west of Wickham Mill, Wickhambreaux

Full description

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A very faint cropmark trace of a possible ring ditch approximately 24.5 in diameter. This cropmark is centred at TR 2188 58659 and could only be seen on the most recent aerial photographs taken in 2001.

This ditch is part of a collection of probable Bronze Age barrows forming a linear cemetery running NE-SW alongside the Little Stour. It is possible that the barrow cemetery extends further to the north-east beneath Wickhambreaux village and south-west into adjacent fields. However the area to the south-west is cultivated with orchards and so traces of buried features are unidentifiable from aerial photography as with the village. As this site has been ploughed for a number of centuries all features appear to have been levelled. It is likely that very little of the barrow structures survive, though on the southern edge of the alignment deeper soil which appears to obscure parts of some of the ring ditches may have helped to preserve more of the buried remains. (1)

This cropmark is visible in an NMR archive aerial photography, 16th July 2001.


<1> English Heritage, 2009, Wickhambreaux, Kent: Ring Ditch Survey (Unpublished document). SKE16345.

Sources and further reading

Cross-ref. Source description
<1>Unpublished document: English Heritage. 2009. Wickhambreaux, Kent: Ring Ditch Survey.