THE LINCOLNSHIRE CAR DYKE

Past Work, Management Needs and Future Possibilities.

Paul Cope-Faulkner and Gary Taylor

ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT SERVICES

(part of the HERITAGE TRUST OF LINCOLNSHIRE)

Heritage Lincolnshire was commissioned by English Heritage to produce a management document for the Lincolnshire Car Dyke. Previous work, by the Car Dyke Research Group and a draft report produced by the Trust for Lincolnshire Archaeology, will be assessed and the need for updating, validation and revision of the earlier work will be identified in light of new approaches to the preservation and enhancement of monuments.

At present Archaeological Project Services is compiling a database, to be used with GIS systems, incorporating the results of many years fieldwork including the recent Fenland Survey. Furthermore, a new programme of fieldwork is in progress assessing the preservation of the monument relative to observations made 25 years ago and identifying the best approaches of understanding a monument such as the Car Dyke.

The Car Dyke is described as a linear watercourse c. 122km long, starting at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, crossing the River Welland and entering Lincolnshire at Deeping St James (NGR TF143097). From here it skirts the western limit of the Fenlands of south Lincolnshire and joins the River Witham a few miles below Lincoln (NGR TF016709). This project is a consideration of the Lincolnshire section of the Car Dyke, a length of some 90km.

The monument had been recognised since the 18th century as an important feature of the ancient landscape. William Stukeley first described it as a canal for the trade of goods, an interpretation that has stuck. Later, the Car Dyke was recognised as having an equally important role as a catchwater drain, diverting the east flowing waters away from the fens. It has also been claimed to be an Imperial Roman Estate boundary. All previous writers on this monument have agreed on a Roman date for the feature but no-one has demonstrated overwhelming evidence for this, particularly along the Lincolnshire section. The Cambridgeshire section of the Car Dyke may have been constructed during the Antonine period (AD 140-180) as revealed in recent excavations (Macaulay and Reynolds 1993).

The monument is known to survive in various states of preservation along its length, from impressive earthworks (Fig. 1) to cropmarks (Fig. 2). The monument still plays a role in modern agricultural drainage and is subject to the demands that farmers place on it. One of the objectives of this work was also to assess the condition of the entire Lincolnshire section of the Dyke.

During the 1970s the Car Dyke Research Group was initiated to undertake a fieldwalking and recording programme along the course of the monument. Though a number of articles resulted from this work, a final report summarising all the work of the Group was not published. Since then a number of excavations and other fieldwork along the course of the monument have taken place. The last major examination of the monument in Lincolnshire was the excavation of two sections of the dyke at Baston, between 1989 and 1990 (Fig. 3). The survey of the Lincolnshire Fens, also commissioned by English Heritage, took in part of the Car Dyke and identified Roman remains that apparently ignore the monument (Hayes and Lane 1992, 213). This project will attempt to incorporate the most recent examinations with the original records of the Car Dyke Research Group.

The Car Dyke has been threatened by many factors over the years. Recent development encroaches on this monument in the south of the county whilst, generally along the route, agricultural regimes have seen the ploughing of the banks and infilling of the channel. Over ten sections of this monument are protected as scheduled ancient monument.

The project was commenced in the summer and is still underway. A total of four people are currently involved in the work and include Brian Simmons, the original instigator of research into the Car Dyke, as a consultant. Assistance is also being provided by the Lincolnshire Sites and Monuments Record office, R.C.H.M.E. Air Photography Unit and, shortly, liaison with the Monuments Protection Programme (English Heritage).

One of the first aims of the project was to identify and define the extent of the monument along with defining its role within the archaeological landscape. To achieve this, data from the County Sites and Monuments Record, the archive of the Car Dyke Research Group, scheduling documents and the records maintained by the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire have been collated and are in the process of being incorporated into a database. In conjunction with GIS maps it is hoped that the assessment of the archaeology and environment of the Car Dyke corridor will be easily achieved.

A programme of a visual survey of the monument has been initiated and the results will be compared to earlier surveys to measure the changing state of the monument. Initial work, from Market Deeping to Bourne, has noted some changes in the state of the monument compared to 25 years ago. Repeated cleaning of the dyke by farmers has lead to larger banks on either side of the monument with a wider and deeper channel. However, in other places repeated ploughing has destroyed any trace of the banks and there are examples where this is no trace of the monument other than as slight hollows across fields or as cropmarks.

The Car Dyke Research Group also attempted to fieldwalk a corridor of two fields on either side of the monument as it had been recognised that there were a number of ancillary watercourses and Roman trackways that may be associated with the monument. A programme of checking the results of this early fieldwork will start as conditions become appropriate for this survey later this year.

Although the monument is not as visually stunning as Hadrian's Wall or Offa's Dyke, it does appear to attract visitors and for this purpose the Car Dyke is shown on a few tourist trails of the region. At Langtoft, north of Market Deeping, there is an example of one of the few visitor boards indicating to some extent the nature of the Car Dyke. It has been recognised that for a monument almost comparable in length to Hadrian's Wall, there is little for the visitor to read or understand about the Car Dyke.

Once this work has been completed it will then be necessary to consider the future of the Car Dyke. One of the major tasks will be to ascertain the future research requirements to improve the comprehension of the monument. For example, it has long been recognised that there is no secure date for construction of the Car Dyke, and though a Hadrianic date (AD 117-138) has been suggested, this has yet to be proved. Furthermore, it is important to finally establish the purpose and role the Car Dyke had in the Romano-British period.

As previously mentioned, visitor access to, and understanding of the monument is restricted compared to many other monuments locally and regionally. It is hoped that the renewed interest as demonstrated by this work will help to improve the general access and awareness of one of Lincolnshire's major Romano-British monuments.

Hayes, P.P. and Lane, T.W., 1992 The Fenland Project No. 5: Lincolnshire Survey, The Southwest Fens, East Anglian Archaeology 55

Macauley, S. and Reynolds, T., 1993 Excavations and Site Management at Cambridgeshire Car Dyke, Waterbeach (TL 495 645) in Evans, C. and Pollard, J. (Eds) Fenland Research 8