Summary

Prehistoric multiple ring ditch, 310m north east of the National Memorial Arboretum Visitors Centre.

Source: Historic England

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 6 July 2015. 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 the buried and slight earthwork remains of a prehistoric circular monument situated on slightly raised ground on the western bank of the river Tame. The monument has been identified through cropmarks on aerial photographs and includes at least two circular ditches, with a further possible internal ditch or set of closely set pits enclosing an area of approximately 10m with a possible central pit. Externally the monument measures 45m in diameter. Fragments of a beaker vessel were recovered on the periphery of the monument in 1996 and fieldwalking over the site has revealed prehistoric flint tools and waste flake material. A slight mound within the centre of the monument may suggest the monument to be a round barrow but the size of its external diameter could suggest the site of a henge, however more than one monument type may be represented.

Linear ditches and enclosures to the west of the monument may also be related to it, but as these have not been formally assessed are not included within the scheduling.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

In the later prehistoric period the rivers of the Trent and Tame functioned as important transit routes as indicated by a dense archaeological record of monuments within the river valleys, identified from aerial photography and excavation in advance of modern day gravel quarrying. A cultural landscape developed among the river valley terraces in the later Neolithic and early Bronze Age periods, the focus of this ceremonial and ritual activity appears to be to the north of the confluence of the two rivers, where a cluster of monuments known as the Catholme Cermonial Complex are known including henges, pit and post alignments and a possible cursus monument. Further monuments diffuse west and south along the Trent and Tame valleys.

Just over 2km to the SSW the prehistoric multiple ring ditch 310m north east of the National Memorial Arboretum Visitors Centre survives as buried archaeological remains with slight traces of earthworks which will provide evidence for the monument’s function, construction and use as well as important information on prehistoric social, ceremonial and ritual activity in the Trent and Tame valley areas.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Websites
Where Rivers Meet: Landscape, Ritual, Settlement and the Archaeology of River Gravels, 2006, accessed 2009 from http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?where_rivers_meet_eh_2006
Other
Pastscape: 921821, HER: DST5293 & NMR: SK11SE24

Source: Historic England