Devil's Dyke (Cambridgeshire)
The Devil's Dyke (also Reach Dyke or Devil's Ditch , formerly also called St Edmund's Ditch ) is an earthwork from the 5th or 6th century in the English county of Cambridgeshire . It consists of a 12.1 kilometer (7.5 mile) long embankment with a moat that extends from Reach in a southeastern direction to Woodditton . The Devil's Dyke is one of the largest and best-preserved earth walls in England. It is believed that it was built by the Anglo-Saxons .
description
The Devil's Dyke is approximately 12.1 kilometers long, making it the largest mound in Cambridgeshire . In some places the Dyke reaches a height of 9 meters and a width of 36.5 meters. It was built on a low heap consisting of the original humus layer on which the excavated material from the trench was piled. Since the 19th century, several railroad lines and roads have been laid through the earthworks of Devil's Dyke. These include the A11 road and the A14 road as well as a branch line to the Ipswich to Ely Line .
Starting in the village of Reach, the Devil's Dyke runs through open terrain, which is now characterized by agricultural areas, before passing the Newmarket Racecourses . The southern end of the Dykes is in the woods of a private estate near the village of Woodditton.
history
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Devil's Dyke is the largest and best preserved of several earthworks in southern Cambridgeshire. When it was built in the 5th or 6th century, it was located between the swampy and impassable regions of the Fens in the northwest and the dense forests in the south. It is possible that it was built over an earlier earth wall from prehistoric times. It is not known who exactly built the Dyke. It was on the border of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of East Anglia and Mercia , and since the moat is on the west side of the Dykes, it is believed that it was built by the people of East Anglia to defend against Mercia. The Dyke prevented easy passage and was an effective defense for the lands to the east. The Dyke crossed three important Roman roads and the Icknield Way and was used to control trade and movement along these roads. It also represented a line of defense. The ditch in front of the earth wall was probably planted with bushes as an additional defensive measure. Finds and the low occurrence of mud in the trench in front of the earth wall suggest that the Devil's Dyke was abandoned shortly after it was built.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has an annal for the year 905, when Edward the Elder fought victoriously against the Danes in East Anglia , in which the Devil's Dyke is mentioned. Eduard devastated the surrounding lands: “and oferhergade call hera land betwuh dicun and Wusan. call oþ da fennas norð ”-“ and he devastated the land between the Dyke and the Ouse northwards to the Fens ”. Abbo von Fleury described East Anglia in the late 10th century as “fortified in the front with a bank or rampier like unto a huge wall, and with a trench or ditch below in the ground” - “fortified in the front with a ramp as for a large wall and with a ditch below ”. The medieval Flores Historiarum calls in its description of the battle between Edward and his opponents "... duo fossata sancti Eadmundi ..." - "the two fortifications of St Edmund".
Since the 19th century, several railroad lines and roads have been laid through the earthworks of Devil's Dyke. These include the A11 road and the A14 road as well as a branch line to the Ipswich to Ely Line . In the course of the 20th century there were several archaeological excavations and investigations on the Dyke. An excavation carried out during the construction of the A14 road revealed how and when the Dyke was built. More recently, parts of the dyke began to overgrown with bushes, which is why a restoration project was carried out between 2002 and 2007 in which the dyke was returned to its original state.
Protection and nature
The Devil's Dyke is now protected and administered by the English Heritage as a Scheduled Ancient Monument . The Dyke is also considered a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation .
A hiking trail runs along the entire Dykes. Along this path you can find some rare plant species that are typical of grasslands . The Devil's Dyke is one of only two places in Cambridgeshire where a kind of pasque flower ( Pulsatilla ) occurs. Another rare plant species is the buck's belt tongue ( Himantoglossum hircinum ). Plants that are common on the Dyke include the cluster of bellflower ( Campanula glomerata ), the round-leaved bellflower ( Campanula rotundifolia ), the common horseshoe clover ( Hippocrepis comosa ), the field scabious ( Knautia arvensis ), esparsettes ( Onobrychis ), Finials ( Polygala ) and the Little Wiesenknopf ( Sanguisorba minor ). The forest in the south of the Dykes is made up of birch, oak and ash.
When it comes to butterflies, the Devil's Dyke is one of the most biodiverse places in all of England. The species that can be found there include the Little Bluebird ( Aricia agestis ), the Green Hairstreak , the Black Pea butterfly ( Erynnis tages ) and the Silver - Green Bluebird ( Polyommatus coridon ). In the wooded area at the southern end of the dyke there are also the aurora butterfly ( Anthocharis cardamines ), the forest board game ( Pararge aegeria ), the rapeseed white butterfly ( Pieris napi ) and the red-brown ox-eye ( Pyronia tithonus ). The field tiger beetle ( Cicindela campestris ) as well as numerous species of crickets and grasshoppers are among the other insects that can be found on the dyke.
The long-tailed tit ( Aegithalos caudatus ), the skylark ( Alauda arvensis ), the golden hammer ( Emberiza citrinella ) and the blackcap ( Sylvia communis ) breed along the Dyke and its immediate surroundings .
Legends and origins of names
There are several legends about how the Devil's Dyke came about.
Legend has it that all of East Anglia was covered in forest a long time ago. In this forest lived a people of giants who were known for their cunning, strength and ferocity. Their leader was Hrothgar, whose daughter Hayenna was coveted by the demon of fire. Whenever her loved ones were on the hunt, Hayenna was haunted by visions of burning bushes, comets and lightning. Hrothgar promised his daughter that the fire demon would never get her, especially since the god of water was the enemy of fire and her ally. Hayenna sacrificed two goats to the water god, whereupon the god Hrotghar appeared to her in her sleep and brought a warning. The fire demon has allied itself with the storm and with the devils of the forest, but the water god is with Hrotghar in the coming battle. All the giants of the forest gathered and listened to Hrotghar's battle plan. They began by cutting down trees and pulling up bushes and shrubs until they had created a level surface. Then they started digging a trench with their hands. They piled the excavated soil at the edge of the trench. They worked like that for three days until, by the end of the third day, they had dug a trench 18 feet deep and seven miles long. The moat reached from the bank of the river to Mount Dithon. When the giants stood in the freshly dug trench after their work, they were watched by the demon of the air. This sent a powerful east wind that blew around the surrounding trees and threw them on the giants. The storm demon also brought hail and freezing rain from the north. The giants turned to Hrothgar, complaining that the gods had turned against them and that it was wrong to challenge the fire demon. Hrothgar just laughed and said they should wait for the miracle of the water god. As he spoke, a cloud of smoke rose and the freezing rain subsided. Thereupon the fire demon appeared and sent tongues of flame against the earth wall. The giants fled from the demon's laughter and only Hrotghar remained. He used his hands to dig away the rest of the earth that lay between the ditch and the river. The water flooded the moat to Mount Dithon, blocking the fire demon's path. The demon defeated in this way destroyed everything on his side of the ditch in his fury, so that only smoking tree stumps and burned animals remained. Hrotghar took a solemn oath to sacrifice daily to the god of water and to preserve the wall for the protection of his people and the forest.
The names Devil's Dyke and Devil's Ditch can be traced back to a post-medieval legend. Accordingly, the devil is said to have appeared uninvited to a wedding in the church of Reach. When chased away by the wedding guests, he got angry and dug the dyke with his fiery tail. The name St Edmunds Dyke was particularly common in the Middle Ages and can be traced back to the fact that the Dyke marked the limit of the jurisdiction of the abbots of Bury St Edmunds . It was also called the Great Ditch in the Middle Ages , and during the 11th century siege of Ely by William I , the Dyke was called the Reach Dyke .
literature
- Homer Sykes: Mysterious Britain - Fact and Folklore George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. 1993 ISBN 0-297-83196-8 p. 62
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e History and Archeology. In: Devil's Dyke Restoration Project. July 23, 2013, archived from the original on July 23, 2013 ; accessed on August 7, 2014 .
- ↑ Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record 07801 (Devil's Ditch / Dyke, Reach to Woodditton). In: Heritage Gateway. www.heritagegateway.org.uk, accessed on August 5, 2014 .
- ^ John Earle: Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1865, pp. 98 ( Google Books - Old English, annotated in English).
- ↑ Samuel Tymms: The Devil's Dyke, Newmarket . In: Proceedings of the Bury and West Suffolk Archaeological Institute . 1853, p. 175 (English, Google Books ).
- ↑ Cardale Babington : Ancient Cambridgeshire: or an Attempt to Trace Roman and Other Ancient Roads That Passed Through the County of Cambridge . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1853, pp. 60 (English).
- ^ Restoration Project. In: Devil's Dyke Restoration Project. July 23, 2013, archived from the original on July 23, 2013 ; accessed on August 7, 2014 .
- ↑ Home. In: Devil's Dyke Restoration Project. February 9, 2013, archived from the original on February 9, 2013 ; accessed on August 7, 2014 .
- ↑ a b c Species and Sightings. In: Devil's Dyke Restoration Project. July 23, 2013, archived from the original on July 23, 2013 ; accessed on August 7, 2014 .
- ↑ The Devil's Dyke. In: Legends of the Fenland People. www.reach-village.co.uk, accessed August 7, 2014 .
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 16 ′ 11.3 " N , 0 ° 17 ′ 50.1" E