Clennell Street Cross Dyke 3

Has been described as a Possible Linear Defence or Dyke

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains

NameClennell Street Cross Dyke 3
Alternative Names
Historic CountryNorthumberland
Modern AuthorityNorthumberland
1974 AuthorityNorthumberland
Civil ParishBiddlestone

Cross dyke, or linear bank and ditch, runs across the narrow neck of land between Hare Sheds and Uplaw Knowe. It measures about 130m long by 5m wide overall. There is a gap where the medieval drove road, called Clennell Street, runs through. The date of the cross dyke is but it may originally have been a prehistoric boundary, reused in the medieval period. A small circular feature, once thought to be a hut circle, has been cut into it at a later date and is now thought to be a cockpit, where cockfighting took place. (Keys to the Past)

Centred NT 90660890 Faint, but I think another cross-dyke ? (Annotated Record Map Corr 6" (Sir W Aitchison Undated).

NT 90650895-NT 90650878. Remains of a turf-covered earthen bank, 2.5m wide, with a maximum height of 0.2m, and a ditch on the west side, 2.5m wide and 0.5m deep maximum, run in a nearly north-south direction from the top of the precipitous slopes above the south banks of the Kidlandlee Burn, across the Clennell Street, to a point some 80.0m to the south of it. The total length of the cross-dyke is approximately 130.0m. The Street passes through a distinct gap (F1 ASP 02-MAY-57).

The feature appears to be no more than a recent drainage channel consisting of a shallow ditch (2.5m x 0.5m deep) with a slight upcast bank (2.5m x 0.2m high) on the east side. In part the ditch is formed by a series of connected rectangular pits. It could not conceivably present any obstruction to the passage of Clennell Street, for in addition to its weak profile, the feature to be effective would need to be extended some 1100m beyond its present southern limit to the next change of contour in the ground (c/f NT 90 NW7) (F2 RE 02-JUL-70). (PastScape)

Not scheduled

Not Listed

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)
County Historic Environment Record
OS Map Grid ReferenceNT906087
Latitude55.3730697631836
Longitude-2.14930009841919
Eastings390650
Northings608780
HyperLink HyperLink HyperLink

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Books

  • Rushworth, Alan, Roberts, Ian and Carlton, Richard, 2005, Droving in the Northumberland National Park (Northumberland National Park Authority) p. 56

Journals

  • Jobey, G., 1992, 'Cock-fighting in Northumberland and Durham during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries' Archaeologia Aeliana (ser5) Vol. 20 p. 1-25