Summary

A 350m length of Devil’s Ditch, running north-west from The Cottage to The Valdoe, Goodwood Park.

Source: Historic England

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 22 October 2014. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a 350m length of the Devil’s Ditch, also known as the Devil’s Dyke, a prehistoric linear boundary surviving as an earthwork and below-ground archaeological remains. It is situated on a gentle slope near the foot of a ridge, west of Goodwood House.

The earthwork is denoted by a bank, about 1m high, and a largely in-filled ditch on its eastern side. It runs north from The Cottage for about 200m, along a field boundary, before gradually curving west towards the woodlands of The Valdoe. The bank diminishes as it heads north, following the line of the natural slope. Partial excavation in 1967 of a section of the bank, showed that it is composed of a core of chalk rubble with a layer of humus. A sherd of Iron Age pottery dating to the 1st century BC was found securely stratified on the original surface below the bank. Further surface finds of pottery sherds following ploughing nearby indicated the possible site of a Roman building, which may have used the entrenchment as a boundary.

The Devil’s Ditch in Sussex has been documented by antiquarians since at least the 18th century. It is part of a group of linear earthworks on the gravel plain between the foot of the South Downs and Chichester Harbour. The entrenchments run from Lavant to Boxgrove and appear to enclose the area of the coastal plain to the south. It has been suggested that these marked out a high status, proto-urban tribal settlement (or ‘oppidum’) preceding the Roman invasion. The Devil’s Ditch is thought to date to the Late Iron Age (about 100 BC – AD 43) but was recut and extended in places during the medieval period. The name of the entrenchment is derived from a local tradition, which holds that the ditch was the work of the devil in an attempt to channel the sea and flood the churches of Sussex.

It is within the bounds of Goodwood Park, a Grade I registered park.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Linear boundaries are substantial earthwork features comprising single or multiple ditches and banks which may extend over distances varying from between less than 1km to over 10km. They survive as earthworks or as linear features visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs or as a combination of both. The evidence of excavation and study of associated monuments demonstrate that their construction often spans at least a millennium from the Middle Bronze Age, although they may have been re-used later. The scale of many linear boundaries has been taken to indicate that they were constructed by large social groups and were used to mark important boundaries in the landscape; their impressive scale displaying the corporate prestige of their builders. They would have been powerful symbols, often with religious associations, used to define and order the territorial holdings of those groups who constructed them. Linear earthworks are of considerable importance for the analysis of settlement and land use from the Bronze Age; all well preserved examples will normally merit statutory protection.

The 350m length of Devil’s Ditch, running north-west from The Cottage to The Valdoe, Goodwood Park survives relatively well. It will contain archaeological and environmental information relating to the earthwork and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Hamilton, S, Gregory, K, 'Updating the Sussex Iron Age' in Sussex Archaeological Collections, , Vol. 138, (2000), 63 & 66
Other
West Sussex HER 1940 - MWS3239. NMR LINEAR 34, SU80NE6. PastScape 1065548, 245536.

Source: Historic England