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Dray's Ditches, Bedfordshire, and Early Iron age Territorial Boundaries in the Eastern Chilterns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

James F. Dyer
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Extract

The linear dyke known as Dray's Ditches, about half a mile long, runs at right angles to the Icknield Way, whose modern track approaches it near its mid-point. The name ‘Dray's Ditche’ first appears on a map engraved by Thomas Jeffrys in 1765, and its course is marked, between Great Bramingham and the Old Bedford Road, on a map of 1774. In 1540 Leland wrote that ‘in the hye way I saw hard on eche syde 3 longe trenches, as they had been for Men of warre’. Davies referred to a ‘treble row of ditches, which run in a straight line from Bramingham to Warden Hill, where they run aslant up the hill’; whilst Beldam described ‘several trenches called Gray's Dykes which run down in irregular lines of two ditches between three banks, from a tumulus on the Warden Hills, a little to the south of the Icenhilde Road, and traverse it exactly at its junction with the old Luton and Bedford Road, but now disappearing in the cultivated fields on the opposite side of the road’. A subsidiary earthwork which runs along the western foot of Galley Hill for about half a mile, enclosing a flat area of some hundred acres, has also been described as part of this system. This earthwork, however, was considered by Crawford, in 1934, to be ‘merely an old enclosure around an arable field’, and excavation has proved his view correct.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 41 , Issue 1-2 , April 1961 , pp. 32 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1961

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References

page 32 note 1 TL/078266 to TL/088264. In Streatley parish, three miles due north of Luton, Bedford-shire.

page 32 note 2 Reprinted by Austin, W., History of Luton, I (1928), 280.Google Scholar

page 32 note 3 History of Luton (1885), 43.

page 32 note 4 Arch. Journ. xxv (1868), 29.

page 32 note 5 Cobbe, H., History of Luton Church (1899), 435Google Scholar; Wadmore, B., The Earthworks of Bedfordshire (1920), 250Google Scholar; V.C.H. Bedfordshire, i (1904), 280.

page 32 note 6 Beds. Historical Records Soc. v (1919), 163 ff.

page 34 note 1 In 1832, when the New Bedford Road was built, Davies, , History of Luton (1855), 43Google Scholar, records the discovery of skeletons, pottery, etc., which are now lost.

page 34 note 2 In July 1951 the Luton Grammar School Archaeological Society, under the supervision of the writer, cut a section through this bank at TL/091268. It showed lynchet formation only. There is literary evidence to show that the field was ploughed during both the Napoleonic and Second World Wars.

page 34 note 3 The excavation, during Easter and Whitsun 1959, was directed and financed by the writer, with the sanction of the Ministry of Works, and with the assistance of boys from Luton Grammar School and Icknield Secondary Modern School, Luton. The South Bedfordshire Golf Club and Mr. F. J. Manning kindly gave permission for work on their lands. I wish to acknowedge help given by members of the Chiltern Earthworks Research Group, and in particular that of Anthony J. Hales, for assistance in preparing the maps. I owe an especial debt of gratitude to Mrs. M. Aylwin Cotton, who has made many valuable suggestions and who supplied reference material.

page 36 note 1 Cf. one from Toddington, four miles westward along the Ede-Way, now in Bedford Modern School Museum.

page 39 note 1 Cf. Hawkes, , Ant. Journ. xx (1940), 235–9 and fig. 3Google Scholar.

page 39 note 2 I am indebted to Mr. Adrian Oswald for dating this pipe as not later than A.D. 1720, and probably nearer to A.D. 1680.

page 39 note 3 As distinct from the Icknield Wav, which suggests the restricted territory left as a result of the Enclosures Act.

page 40 note 1 TL/113293 to TL/119290.

page 40 note 2 TL/099295. F.C.H. Herts. ii (1908), 106–7, plan at p. 107; R.C.H.M. Herts. (1910), 114–15, plan at p. 115.

page 40 note 3 TL/066302. c. 9 acres. Unexcavated. Mentioned by Wyatt, , Proc. Soc. Ant. vi (2nd ser., 1874), 186.Google Scholar

page 40 note 4 TL/136314. Cf. Fox, Arch. Cambs. Region (1923), 80, with earlier references; and Apple-baum, Arch. Journ. cvi (1949), 33, who suggests a date within the fifth century B.C. for the burials.

page 40 note 5 TL/138305. Stukeley, Itin. Cur. (1724), 73.

page 40 note 6 Applebaum, , Ant. Journ. xiv (1934), 383–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar and figs. 2–3; Arch. Journ. cvi (1949), 33; Radford, P.P.S.xx (1954), 24, quotes the site as having storage pits of Little Woodbury type.

page 40 note 7 TL/203325. c. 15 acres. Cf. Applebaum, Arch. Journ. cvi (1949), 12–45. Plan at fig. I. Earlier references quoted at pp. 15–16.

page 41 note 1 TL/298366 to TL/294372. Cf. Crawford, P.P.S. ii (1936), 105 and map of pi. xxii. Air photograph at pi. xxxi, repeated in Antiquity, x (1936), pi. iv.

page 41 note 2 TL/260387. c. 12½ acres. Cf. Beldam, , Proc. Soc. Ant. iv (1859), 285–90Google Scholar. Plan and profile at p. 286, re-used in V.C.H. Herts. ii (1908), 105–6Google Scholar; R.C.H.M. Herts. (1910), 38; T.E. Herts. A.S. iv. (1911), 270–2Google Scholar with sketch plan; Fox, Arch. Cambs. Region (1923), 109, 135–6 and 139 with pl. iv; Crawford, , P.P.S. ii (1936), 101Google Scholar, on map of pl. xxiii; and Joseph, St., J.R.S. xlv (1955), 89Google Scholar.

page 41 note 3 TL/293387. Cf. Crawford, , P.P.S. 11 (1936), 101Google Scholar.

page 41 note 4 TL/333400 to TL/329429. Cf. Beldam, , Arch. Journ. xxv (1868), 37Google Scholar; Fox, , Arch. Cambs. Region (1923), 127 and map vGoogle Scholar; and Crawford, , Antiquity, viii (1934), 216–18Google Scholar with air photographs at pls. XII–XIII.

page 41 note 5 TL/323418. Clark, , P. Cambs. A.S. xxxviii (1936–7), 170–6Google Scholar with air photograph at pi. 1, and Crawford, , P.P.S. ii (1936), 101–2Google Scholar and pi. xxv.

page 43 note 1 TL/291396. Cf. Crawford, , P.P.S. ii (1936), 101.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 TL/309382.

page 43 note 3 TL/318395. Cf. Crawford, op. cit. 103.

page 43 note 4 TL/414433 to TL/431405. Cf. Beldam, , Arch. Journ. xxv (1868), 36–37Google Scholar; Fox, Lethbridge, Palmer, and Leaf, , P. Cambs. A.S. xxvii (1924–25), 16–35Google Scholar; ibid. xxx (1927–8), 78–93; ibid. xxxii (1930–31), 54–56; and Lethbridge, , Ant. Journ. viii (1938), 357–9Google Scholar and P. Cambs. A.S. Ii (1957), 1–6.

page 43 note 5 TL/374413. Cf. Crawford, , P.P.S. ii (1936), 102Google Scholar.

page 43 note 6 TL/344424. Cf. Crawford, op. cit. 102 with air photograph at pi. xxvi; and Clark, , P. Cambs. A.S. xxxviii (1936–7), 171Google Scholar.