Medieval to post-medieval wood bank, Little Grimsditch Wood (EHER 4785)

Woodland block with medieval to post-medieval enclosing banks with allegedly an Iron Age enclosure.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import: In Little Grimsditch Wood, on high ground, is an irregularly-shaped earthwork with a number of right-angles, comprising a rampart and ditch. Possibly a wood boundary, Fox <4> suggests an Iron Age date for it, but on form only as no Iron Age finds are known. <1> - <4> 1989. Aerial photography. <5> 1977. Field survey. A coppice boundary bank, Not an antiquity. <6> 1988. Field survey. Earthwork was a continuous univallate enclosure (ditch outside bank) of about 25 acres in extent. Sited on a hill-top, entirely within Grims Ditch Wood. For part of its perimeter, the earthwork was the wood boundary, but mostly was set back within the wood by anything up to 30m. The perimeter of the earthwork which we followed virtually all the way round was remarkably consistent and undamaged. The vertical distance between the top of the bank and the bottom of the silted-up ditch was never more than 1.5m. Shape of the earthwork was ovalish, with fairly pronounced corners. No obvious entrance though could have been obscured by brambles and nettles. At the northern end a marked depression immediately inside the earthwork may be an entrance later blocked - or it may have been just the head of a dry valley cut off by the bank and ditch. This marked depression appeared to have been flanked by two unequal banks - but one at least may be natural. Didi not fully investigate the interior. One flint flake found in rabbit scrape. No positive woodland management . In the early 1960s all the good standards were cut down and the timber sold, and since then the wood has been neglected. The removal of trees and elm disease has let in a lot of light and nettles and brambles were rampant. <7> As described by authority 4. It is likely that the wood was originally part of the present Grimsditch Wood (TL 54 SW 25), but has been separated from it by assarting. Both woods are recorded at the beginning of the 17th century, suggesting that the earthwork banks originated in the medieval period, although some of the extant features are likely to be more recent. <8> Brief popular publication account of RCHME survey and findings. <9> See also: <10>