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The Lincolnshire Car Dyke: Navigation or Drainage?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

B. B. Simmons
B. B. Simmons
Affiliation:
The Railway Station, Heckington, Sleaford, Lincs.
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Extract

Most writers have seen the Car Dyke as a navigable Roman canal, connecting the fenlands of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire with the major Roman markets of Lincoln and York. Its course is shown on the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain as running from Waterbeach on the Cam to Washingborough, a few miles below Lincoln, on the Witham, and many, following Stukeley, have seen it as supplying the northern markets with the agricultural produce of the Roman fenland. The importance of cereals in this trade has indeed been questioned, but the general theory has persisted.

In order to assess the validity of the theory, and to establish the purpose of the work and the date and method of its construction, the northern half of the Dyke, from the Witham to Bourne, a distance of about 36 miles (57-6 km), has been studied over a period of some 10 years. This paper summarizes the findings to date. It is, of course, realized that all the conclusions reached here do not necessarily apply equally to the southern end.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 10 , November 1979 , pp. 183 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © B. B. Simmons 1979. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 e.g. O.S. Map of Roman Britain (3rd ed. 1956Google Scholar), introduction, 13; Richmond, I. A.Roman Britain (2nd ed. 1963) 129Google Scholar; Frere, S. S.Britannia (1st ed. 1967), 275–6Google Scholar; Liversidge, J.Britain in the Roman Empire (1973), 402Google Scholar; Todd, M.The Coritani (1973), 53.Google Scholar

2 Stukeley, W.The Medallic History of Marcus Aurelius Valerius Carausius, Emperor of Britain (1757), 125–6.Google Scholar

3 Hallam, S. J. in C. W. Phillips The Fenlands in Roman Times (1970), 63Google Scholar: ‘The detailed R.B. lay-out raises doubts whether cereal production round the Wash can have been at more than subsistence scale.’

4 Geological Survey 1912 and 1954.

5 e.g. Barley, M. W.Lincolnshire and the Fens (1952) 26Google Scholar; Hallam, H. E.Settlement and Society (1965), 98.Google Scholar

6 There have in fact been two minor publications relating to excavations along the landward edge of the fens, Salt The Study of an Ancient Industry (1975), 33–6; B. B. Simmons, Roman Tile Kilns at Heckington, Lincolnshire (1977), but these are not strictly to do with the fens themselves.

7 A great deal of the work was done by members of the Car Dyke Research Group, especially Dr K. R. Fennell, Miss R. H. Healey, Dr and Mrs F. Pinchbeck, Mr and Mrs J. Sardeson, Mr and Mrs S. Stanley, Mrs S. N. Simmons and Mr and Mrs K. Atkins. Aerial photographs were obtained from the Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photography, the Soil Survey of England and Wales, Kesteven County Council, Lincolnshire County Council, the National Monuments Record and Eastern Airviews; I am grateful for their co-operation.

8 The same phenomenon has been noticed by P. Salway, in Phillips op. cit. (note 3) 20, (quoting Dr (now Prof.) St. Joseph), and Todd, op. cit. (note 1) 51–2.

9 Robson, J. D.George, H. and Heaven, F. W.Soils in Lincolnshire 1 (1974)Google Scholar, Soil Map; Kesteven County Council (now District Council) aerial photograph No. 7740 (1966).

10 Information from Mr F. Epton, Brothertoft.

11 B. B. Simmons in G. W. Dimbleby, Soc. of Ants. Monograph, forthcoming.

12 e.g. Salway in Phillips, op. cit. (note 3) 10–11.

13 See note 3.

14 Hallam, S. J. in Phillips, op. cit. (note 3) 67–70Google Scholar; Simmons in Dimbleby, op. cit. (note 11).

15 Evidence from surface collection of pottery seems to confirm the date suggested by Salway in Phillips, ibid, 9, and K. F. and B. R. Hartley, ibid, 165–9.

16 Unpublished information from South Lincolnshire Archaeological Unit.

17 Simmons, in de Brisay, op. cit. (note 6).

18 Simmons, in Dimbleby, op. cit. (note 11).

19 Simmons, ibid.

20 Margary, I. D.Roman Roads in Britain (1967), 190, 235.Google Scholar

21 Simmons, B. B. The Lincolnshire Fens and Fen Edge North of Bourne (1975), unpublished M.A. dissertation, University of Leicester, 67–82.Google Scholar

22 e.g. Hallam, S. J., in Phillips, op. cit. (note 3) 29–30.Google Scholar

23 Simmons, , op. cit. (note 21) 67–82Google Scholar.

24 Clark, J. G. D., Report on Excavations on the Cambridgeshire Car Dyke Antiq. Journal. XXIX (1949), 148.Google Scholar

25 By kind permission of the farmer, Mr L. Dobney, and the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board; Simmons op. cit. (note 21), 104–9.

26 The farmer, Mr F. W. Allen, and the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board kindly allowed the work to be undertaken; report by Simmons forthcoming.

27 Information from the Anglian Water Authority.

28 Notebooks in the possession of Mr J. R. Stokes, drawings in the possession of the South Lines. Archaeological Unit; see also Simmons, op. cit. (note 21), 110–5. The work was made possible by a grant from the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust.

29 Mrs K. F. Hartley examined the mortaria and I am indebted to her for her observations.

30 The argument is explored in greater detail in Simmons, op. cit. (note 21), 67–82.

31 Hill, F., Medieval Lincoln (1965), 215.Google Scholar

32 Cunliffe, B., Iron Age Communities in Britain (1974), 129–51 for use in the Iron Age.Google Scholar

33 Frere (1967), op. cit. (note 1), 112.

34 Frere, ibid., 172–3.

35 Gillam, J. P., Types of Roman Coarse Pottery Vessels in Northern Britain AA 4 (1957 – reprint 1968), 71–72.Google Scholar

36 Gillam, J. P., Current Research in Romano-British Coarse Pottery. CBA Research Report No. 10 (1973), 56.Google Scholar

37 e.g. the celebrated Fossae Marianae at the mouth of the Rhone; Corbulo's canal in Lower Germany (Tacitus, , Annals XI, 20)Google Scholar; the projected Moselle-Saône canal (Annals XII, 53)Google Scholar; and Pliny's projected canal in Bithynia (Letters X, 41–2 and 61–2Google Scholar). This last would have involved sluices, for a discussion of which, with references, see White, A. N. Sherwin, The Letters of Pliny (1966), 647–8Google Scholar, Meiggs, R., Roman Ostia (1960), 57, 63, 159 and 488.Google Scholar

38 Information from the Minute Books of the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board.

39 Records of the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board.

40 Mr Leage has kindly discussed this topic at length with me.

41 Sir John Rennie, in Records of the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board.

42 This is Mr Leafe's opinion.

43 Wheeler, W. H., The River Witham and its Estuary, Minutes and Proceedings, Institution of Civil Engineers (1869), 62.Google Scholar

44 Wheeler, W. H., The Drainage of the Fens and Lowlands (1888), 7.Google Scholar

45 Simmons, in Dimbleby, op. cit. (note 11).

46 Wheeler (1869), op. cit. (note 43), 62.

47 S. J. Hallam in Phillips, op. cit. (note 3), pl. IX and 254–5.

48 This situation has been observed in Aslackby Fen, where a large Roman salt-making site lies between the Midfendic and a sea-bank or breakwater; Simmons, in Dimbleby, op. cit. (note 11).

49 The chance find of an upright timber buried at a depth of more than 1.5 m in the parish of Little Hale might be worth investigating (information from Mr A. Priestley, Little Hale).

50 Salway in Phillips, op. cit. (note 3), 9.