Monument record TR 25 NW 439 - A double concentric ring ditch visible as a cropmark

A double concentric ring ditch centred at TR 2158 5856 visible as a cropmark through aerial photography. The inner ditch circuit measures approximately 16.5m and the outer circuit approximately 21.8m.

This ring ditch is part of a collection of five probable Bronze Age barrows forming a linear cemetery running NE-SW alongside the Little Stour. It is possible that the barrow cemetery extends further to the north-east beneath Wickhambreaux village and south-west into adjacent fields. However the area to the south-west is cultivated with orchards and so traces of buried features are unidentifiable from aerial photography as with the village. As this site has been ploughed for a number of centuries all features appear to have been levelled. It is likely that very little of the barrow structures survive, though on the southern edge of the alignment deeper soil which appears to obscure parts of some of the ring ditches may have helped to preserve more of the buried remains. (1)

A ring ditch comprising two concentric ditch circuits is visible as cropmarks on air photographs taken July 2nd 1986. The outer circuit is 23 metres in diameter and appears to feature a narrow causeway facing west. The inner circuit is 17 metres in diameter and is slightly off centre, the result being that the two ditches are quite close together in the northern sector. In addition, the inner circuit appears markedly polygonal, as if comprising several straightish lengths of ditch. Some dark spots in the interior may be pits, perhaps graves, although similar features occur in the broader vicinity and need not be archaeological in origin. Just 4 metres to the south is the faint cropmark of a much smaller ring ditch no more than 9 metres in diameter. Beside them to the east, and running north-south, is a linear feature which need not be contemporary. Other fragmentary features exist in the area. Both ring ditches lie at the sw end of a linear group of ring ditches running roughly paralle to the north side of the Little Stour, on or about the 10 metre contour. (2)

2001, Oblique aerial photograph (Photograph (Print)). SKE58743.

<1> English Heritage, 2009, Wickhambreaux, Kent: Ring Ditch Survey (Unpublished document). SKE16345.