Wellow Village Defences

Description

Possibly part of a village enclosure (VCH). "Wellow" referred to circa 1278 as Welhagh or Welhah. "..." a hedge, fence "hence a piece of ground enclosed or fenced in". (Mutschmann) "George Dyke" referred to circa 1840 as Gorge Dyke. (EPNS)
The remains of this earthwork comprise, in the main, a broad ditch, with in places the remains of an inner bank. Breaks can be attributed to roads, some modern, levelling in gardens, and silting up. On the N, NE and SE the feature is entirely man made, whilst on the W a stream course has been utilised and probably deepened. Barley states "The monks of Rufford were able to dispose of Cratley and Inkersall, (villages) and the displaced men founded the new village of Wellow, the houses laid out round a large triangular green, surrounded by a bank and ditch". (Field Investigators Comments–F1 BHS 04-APR-74). (PastScape)

The evidence ... therefore suggests that the village of Wellow most probably developed during or immediately after the Anarchy. Dating the sequence of Wellow has been especially challenging, however, and while written sources strongly advocate a twelfth-century origin for the village we cannot be sure that settlement and other landscape components such as the Gorge Dyke were developed contemporaneously. It seems most likely that the Gorge Dyke was built partly as a response to perceived threat within a politically unstable landscape in the mid-twelfth century, but it would also have served to control movement of people and stock throughout the medieval and later periods. The intra-mural space within the enclosure was seemingly never entirely filled with settlement, as evidenced by the preserved ridge and furrow in the north-eastern corner of the village; instead the focus appears to have been around the central green and St Swithin's church where the oldest vernacular buildings still stand. (Trick et al 2016)