Car Dyke

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The Car Dyke was, and to large extent still is, a ditch which runs along the western edge of The Fens in eastern England. It is generally accepted as being of Roman age and, for many centuries, to have been taken as marking the western edge of The Fens. There, the consensus begins to break down.

[edit] Likely purpose

In the eighteenth century, William Stukeley described it as a canal used for transporting goods and that idea is still promulgated: For example, excavations in the 1990s by the archaeology unit of Cambridge County Council found what were seen as the remains of a roman-era boat and cargo of pottery from Horningsea.^[1] Other archaeological investigations for the same period have found coal from the Midlands in use to dry Fenland grain and claim this as evidence of trade and transport along the Car Dyke.^[2]

In other parts, however, topography suggests that its use as a canal was very unlikely: It has causeways of never-disturbed ground crossing it and it passes in gradients, up and down the sides of slight ridges. It is said to be a catchwater drain and so in parts it undoubtedly is: in the seventeenth century lengths of it were re-dug to form part of local drainage schemes.^[1] Conversely, the southern half of its passage through Lincolnshire and its northern end, near Washingborough, are accepted as having had a raised bank on each side; one such on the upland side was not a feature well adapted to a catchwater drain.

One conclusion, therefore, though not one reached by everyone, is that overall it was designed primarily as a boundary, that parts were adapted to serve also as a catchwater drain and that parts, such as that near Peterborough, are a little older, were designed as a catchwater drain and were later incorporated into the overall boundary scheme. It is possible to trace features which could be interpreted as boundaries all round The Fens which are either of Roman date or natural. The exception is in the south-east where the landscape was manually strip mined for phosphate so destroying any evidence, before the days of detailed mapping and aerial photography.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b} [1] from webpage of Cambridgeshire Archaeology Unit, accessed August 21, 2006
2. ^ Forbes, R J (1966): Studies in Ancient Technology. Brill Academic Publishers, Boston, Mass. ISBN 9004006265.

[edit] References

• Phillips, C.W. ed. The Fenland in Roman Times Royal Geographical Society (1970)
• Macaulay, S. & Reynolds, T. Excavation and Site Management at Cambridgeshire Car Dyke, Waterbeach (TL 495 645) in Fenland Research No 8 (1993) ISSN 0268-263X