Ramsay, J. and Bathe, G. (2008). The Great Inclosure of Savernake with a note on cross valley dykes. Wiltshire Archaeol Natur Hist Mag 101. Vol 101, pp. 158-175.
 Title The title of the publication or report |
The Great Inclosure of Savernake with a note on cross valley dykes | ||||||
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Issue The name of the volume or issue |
Wiltshire Archaeol Natur Hist Mag 101 | ||||||
Series The series the publication or report is included in |
The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine | ||||||
Volume Volume number and part |
101 | ||||||
Page Start/End The start and end page numbers. |
158 - 175 | ||||||
Biblio Note This is a Bibliographic record only. |
Please note that this is a bibliographic record only, as originally entered into the BIAB database. The ADS have no files for download, and unfortunately cannot advise further on where to access hard copy or digital versions. | ||||||
Publication Type The type of publication - report, monograph, journal article or chapter from a book |
Journal | ||||||
Abstract The abstract describing the content of the publication or report |
Fieldwork reveals that a circular earthen bank with a perimeter of 5586m in the centre of Savernake Forest is the boundary of a single structure intended to exclude animals from a large enclosure. It can be positively related to records of a Tudor attempt to evict commoners and to restore woodland degraded by domestic stock and deer. At its southernmost point the bank was aligned to incorporate an existing, possibly prehistoric or early historic, cross valley dyke straddling Shovel Bottom. Documentation reveals that the commoners resisted their exclusion, and the project was probably abandoned; timber and underwood remained confined to the same coppices existing previously. In the latter-eighteenth century, the same area was converted to parkland, and the layout of rides focusing on Eight Walks was established, in consultation with Capability Brown. Hence the Great Inclosure's functions were reversed: instead of an area of `thick and strong wood' within scrubby heathland, as previously envisaged, it became open parkland, even when the surrounding land was covered in woodland plantations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is noted that the cross valley dyke in Shovel Bottom, and a comparable feature in Great Lodge Bottom, both straddle small chalk valleys, but cease when reaching the clay-with-flints alongside. They therefore replicate, at the small scale, the situation with the Wansdyke, which also has gaps across areas of clay. It is conjectured that these cross valley dykes demarcated valuable arable land, which was held territorially amidst a landscape otherwise used as a common pool resource for pasturage and hunting. | ||||||
Year of Publication The year the book, article or report was published |
2008 | ||||||
Locations Any locations covered by the publication or report. This is not the place the book or report was published. |
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Source Where the record has come from or which dataset it was orginally included in. |
BIAB
(The British & Irish Archaeological Bibliography (BIAB))
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Created Date The date the record of the pubication was first entered |
28 Feb 2008 |
