Nico Ditch
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Nico Ditch (occasionally Mickle Ditch or Nikker) is a linear earthwork that runs between Ashton under Lyne and Stretford in Greater Manchester, England. Despite heavy weathering, the ditch is still visible in short sections, which can be about 3–4 metres wide and up to 1.5 metres deep. A visible 300-metre stretch of the ditch runs through Denton golf course.[1] The earthwork is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.[2]
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[edit] Course
Nico Ditch stretches six miles from Ashton Moss (grid reference SJ909980) in Ashton-under-Lyne to Hough Moss (grid reference SJ82819491) just east of Stretford.[3] It passes through Denton, Reddish, Gorton, Levenshulme, Burnage, Rusholme, Platt Field Park in Fallowfield, Withington, and Chorlton-cum-Hardy, crossing four Metropolitan Boroughs of present day Greater Manchester. It coincides with the boundaries between the boroughs of Stockport and Manchester, and between Tameside and Manchester as far as Denton golf course. A section is beneath the Audenshaw Reservoirs. The ditch may have extended beyond Stretford to Urmston (grid reference SJ78299504).[1]
[edit] History
Nico Ditch was constructed some time between the Roman withdrawal from Britain and the Norman Conquest; possibly in the 7th century as a boundary for the expansionist Anglo-Saxons or in the late 8th or early 9th century as a boundary marker between the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. The purpose of Nico Ditch is unclear; it may have been used as a defensive fortification or as an administrative boundary. Regardless of its earlier use, the ditch has been used as a boundary since at least the medieval period.[1]
Legend has it that Nico Ditch was completed in a single night by the inhabitants of Manchester as a protection against Viking invaders in 869–870. Each man had a set area of the ditch to construct and was required to dig the ditch and build a bank equal to his own height.[1] Excavations have shown that the bank to the north of the ditch is of 20th century origin. This, coupled with the shape of the ditch – u-shaped rather than the v-shape typically used in military ditches and defences – suggests that the purpose of the ditch was to mark a territorial boundary.[3]
[edit] Etymology
The earliest documented reference to the ditch is in a charter detailing the granting of land in Audenshaw to the monks of the Kersal Cell. In the document, dating from 1190 to 1212, the ditch is referred to as “Mykelldiche”, and a magnum fossatum, Latin for "large ditch".[1]
The name Nico – sometimes Nikker – for the ditch became established in the 19th and 20th centuries. The name may have been derived from the Anglo-Saxon Hnickar, a water spirit who seized and drowned unwary travellers. However the modern name is most likely a corruption of the name Mykelldiche and its variations, as the Anglo-Saxon word micel meant "big or great", relating back to the early 13th century description of the ditch as magnum fossatum.[1] An alternative derivation is that Nico comes from nǽcan the Anglo-Saxon verb to kill.[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society – Transactions III (1885) p190
- Speake, R – The Story of Hazel Grove and Bramhall – 1964 p13
- David Hall, Colin Wells and Elizabeth Huckerby - The Wetlands of Greater Manchester - Lancaster University 1995 ISBN 0-901800-80-5 p163(Hough Moss)
- ^ a b c d e f Mike Nevell (1992). Tameside Before 1066. Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, 77-83. ISBN 1-871324-07-6.
- ^ Ancient Monuments Conservation Areas. Manchester City Council (2006-01-24).
- ^ a b Mike Nevell (1998). Lands and Lordships in Tameside. Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council with the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit, 40-41. ISBN 1-871324-18-1.
- ^ Based on the manuscript collections of the late Joseph Bosworth, D.D. F.R.S (1998). Online Anglo-Saxon dictionary.. Clarendon Press. Retrieved on 2007-08-25.
