Prehistoric cross dyke, Fylingdales Moor

Fylingdales Moor is a huge area of heather moorland owned by the Strickland Estate but managed by the Hawk and Owl Trust as a conservation area using “traditional moorland management techniques”. The moor contains many archaeological features. The largest is this prehistoric cross dyke, three parallel ditches with earthbanks between, 780m long. Often the uniformity of the vegetation makes earthworks difficult to photograph but the short cropped grass here provides some contrast. The old Victorian Ordnance Survey map annotates the earthworks as an “intrenchment”, an archaic spelling of entrenchment, i.e. a defensive earthwork. Modern thinking is that Bronze Age cross dykes such as this, and there are several examples on the North York Moors, are not defensive at all but were built to define territorial limits or internal boundaries.