Downloaded from http://pygs.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Iowa on June 9, 2015 45 NOTES ON THE ANCIENT ENTRENCHMENTS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF WETWANG. BY REV. E. MAULE COLE, M.A. In 1882 Major-General Pitt-Rivers published the paper read by him the previous year before the British Association at York, on the Earthworks of the Yorkshire Wolds, with a map illustrating the dis• trict referred to. The accompanying map is drawn to show the mass of entrench• ments, lying further to the West and South, untouched by the paper above mentioned. By his excavations in the earthwork, commonly called Danes Dike, at Flamborough, Major-General Pitt-Rivers has established the fact that that famous entrenchment was constructed by a people who used flint weapons, and apparently had no know• ledge of bronze. He expresses an opinion that the tumuli and entrenchments on the Wolds are of a similar age ; but, quoting Canon Greenwell's authority, he goes on to observe that the tumuli were raised by a people in the early bronze phase of civilization, as bronze knife-daggers and celts of an early type had been found in them. This may be true of some other area, but not of the one before you, which contains some 300 British barrows, opened by Mr. J. R. Mortimer, in none of which was any bronze found. The tumuli and entrenchments were doubtless to a certain extent contemporaneous, though instances can be pointed out where an entrenchment has evidently been diverted for the purpose of avoiding a tumulus. If, therefore, any preference as to age must be given, it should be in favour of the tumuli. The entrenchments are not all of the same kind ; some are merely tracks running along the brow of a steep dale, hollowred out originally to a depth of four or five feet, the earth thrown up on the lower side forming a slight rampart ; these are mostly filled up now. Then there is the single dike, a mound (dike) with a ditch ; and frequently " double dikes," two parallel mounds with corresponding ditches ; and in several places three mounds ; at Garrowby and Millington Lings four mounds, and at Huggate no less than five. These latter will be described later on. Downloaded from http://pygs.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Iowa on June 9, 2015 The above entrenchments serve to cut off promontories to connect the heads of dales, or else to fortify the water-parting, occasionally to afford access to springs, and apparently to supply lines of communi• cation with the coast on the high ground ; but, as a rule, they do not enclose any particular area as a fortified post. Fimber is an exception, and probably Aldro, and one or two other points. As a rule they run down the sides of dales, but do not cross the bottom. There are, however, exceptions, as e.g. the double dikes at Fimber. It is very rare for an entrenchment to be carried along a dale bottom, but there are a few instances, as at Backdale, pointing for Aldro. A great many of the entrenchments marked on the map were determined by the Ordnance Survey, but numerous additions have been made by personal observation carried on for the last twenty years. After the inclosure of the Wolds at the beginning of the present century, the land was brought into cultivation, with the result that many of the old entrenchments were destroyed by the plough. The site of such may still be traced by an experienced eye, though the process of identification is sometimes slow. For instance, in a field of oats just before harvest, a couple of parallel green lines may be seen, whilst all the rest is turning brown. The surface soil is perhaps perfectly level, no sign whatever of an entrenchment. One has to wait four years before taking another observation, or, if cir• cumstances are not favourable, perhaps eight or twelve years. Then, if the green lines re-appear in identically the same direction, it may be confidently asserted that the greener corn is growing in the filled- up ditches of an old entrenchment. In this way field has to be linked with field till the restoration is complete. And here another guide steps in, for in the hedgerows a rounded elevation may often be seen in the otherwise level outline of the top of the hedge. When the hedges were first planted at the inclosure the mounds were then in existence, and the hedges ran over them. All has been ploughed level since in the open field, but the hedge protects the portion of mound under it, and, in a district where the hedges are so neatly trimmed as on the Wolds, the eye can readily catch the rounded line of hummocks in one hedgerow after another. Again in turnip fields, white lines of chalk may occasionally be traced marking the debris of the ploughed-down dike or rampart. Downloaded from http://pygs.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Iowa on June 9, 2015 COLE : ANCIENT ENTRENCHMENTS NEAR WETWANG. 47 By a reference to the map it will be seen that there are three prominent groups of entrenchments, viz., at Aldro, Garrowby Hill, and Fimber ; whilst three long lines start from the Western brow of the Wolds, and are continued for miles in the direction of Flam- borough. The eastern extremities of two of these are figured in the map of Major-General Pitt-Rivers, one terminating above Wold Newton, the other above Butterwick, in the Great Wold Valley. The western extension of the former is shown in the map (PI. I.) passing through Sledmere, Fimber, and Fridaythorpe, and probably connecting with Garrowby Hill; that of the latter is continued in its westerly course from above Lutton to Burdale, and may have joined on to Aldro. A third line not alluded to by the General started from opposite Millington, and was carried by Huggate Dikes to Wetwang ; thence to the monument erected to the late Sir Tatton Sykes, and on by Kilham to Bridlington. All three lines are more or less connected by branch dikes, and present a remarkable net• work of fortifications such as can hardly be found in any other part of England. I use the word " fortification" because General Pitt- Rivers, looking at the eastern portion of them with the eye of a soldier, has pronounced them admirably adapted for defence against hostile attack from the North West, and thinks that they were prin• cipally constructed for that purpose. He adds that in the part which he examined he " found no well-defined example of a dike which appeared to have been thrown up as a defence against the east side." In the western portion now before you this latter statement can hardly be sustained, for the " single dike" at Fimber, with its ditch outside, is clearly a, defence against the south east. The same may be said of the " double dike" running past the monument to Cowlam Dale, which crosses to the northern side of a lateral dale, and defends an approach from Driffield. At first sight the long line of entrenchments stretching from Millington to Wetwang, and again from Foxcover to Wetwang, as also from Fimber to Sledmere and Fimber to Life Hill, seem to favour the view of defence from the North West; but I am inclined to think that the nature of the ground had a great deal to do with the position of the entrenchments in these localities, for the northern and Downloaded from http://pygs.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Iowa on June 9, 2015 48 COLE : ANCIENT ENTRENCHMENTS NEAR WETWANG, western sides of the dales are much steeper and loftier than the opposite sides, which gradually slope away, and the impression left on my mind is that the steeper sides were fortified as a defence against an enemy advancing up the dale bottoms, whether from east or west. In every case the defenders would have the advantage of the higher ground. If this view is correct it will partly account, for the strong position at Fimber, which guards the entrance leading up to the curiously ramifying dales above, whether in the direction of Thixendale or Sledmere, and also for the entrenchments which cross the dales leading up to Huggate, and Huggate Bikes from the east. Fimber appears to have been strongly fortified on all sides. The area enclosed is about one mile in length by half a mile in breadth. A plan, with sections of the dikes, was published by the Rev. T. Wiltshire* in the year 1862, with the assistance of Mr. It. Mortimer, of Fimber. Coming now to Huggate Dikes, it may be confidently affirmed that they are, with the exception of the so-called Danes Dike, the most remai'kable entrenchments on the Wolds. They consist of five parallel ramparts running across the table-land or water-parting at the head of two dales, one of which slopes eastward to Wetwang and Driffield, the other south west to Millington and Pocklington. From a map published by Dr, Burton, of York, in 1745, it is clear that they then existed from one dalehead to the other, a distance of half a mile, but a large portion has since been ploughed down, though distinctly visible to a trained eye. The part which still remains intact is in a grass field, called Huggate Pasture, forming a portion of the Rector's glebe. I am happy to be able to state that the pre• sent Rector, the Rev. J. R. Jolley, of Her Majesty's household, pro• poses to take steps to prevent any further destruction of these interesting antiquities.