Salkeld Dyke (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Great Salkeld.
In the historic county of Cumberland.
Modern Authority of Cumbria.
1974 county of Cumbria.
Medieval County of Cumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NY545365
Latitude 54.72744° Longitude -2.70986°

Salkeld Dyke has been described as a probable Linear Defence or Dyke, and also as a Urban Defence although is doubtful that it was such.

There are no visible remains.

Description

Near Salkeld Dyke are vestiges of an ancient encampment, 400 yards long and four yards high; and adjoining to it is a circular basin of water, 50 yards in diameter and five feet deep, which appears to have been excavated for materials to form the encampment. (Mannix and Whellan 1847)

Site of a protective rampart.
Curwen thought it surrounded Great Salkeld.
Curwen quotes TCWAAS (2), xiii, 28, Hutchinson and Britton.
SMR record '... no earthworks remain...' Field work necessary. (Perriam and Robinson 1998)

Comments

Protective rampart thought to have surrounded the village of Great Salkeld. Area enclosed too large to be an urban defence, although has been called that. May have deterred small groups of cattle raiders or just have functioned as a boundary marker (Salkeld was a parcel of land ceeded to the Kings of Scotland). Does not seem to have been the more usual type of medieval boundary of a deer park pale. Presumably Salkeld Dykes and North and Souths Dykes place-names are related to this feature and give some suggestion as to its extent but nothing on the map on air photo gives a suggestion of the actual line which, again presumably, must have run west of Great Salkeld between the Scatter Beck (at roughly NY536377) and Lair Gill (at roughly NY541381), with these streams and the River Eden forming the rest of the circuit. Nothing like this shown on 1st edition OS map of 1867 although a, now lost and much reduced even by 1900, pond is shown just south of North Dykes at NY54383717.

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 13869.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Visit Cumbria
  Matthew Emmott's Castle Blog
  Old Cumbria Gazetteer
Books
- Creighton, O.H. and Higham, R.A., 2005, Medieval Town Walls (Stroud: Tempus) p. 269
  Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29) p. 218
  Curwen, J.F., 1913, Castles and Fortified Towers of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 13) p. 197
  Mannix and Whellan, 1847, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Cumberland (Beverley) p. 305 view online copy
  Britton, J. and Brayley, E.W., 1803, The Beauties of England; Topographical, Historical and Descriptive Delineation of Cumberland (London) p. 148 online copy
  Hutchinson, W., 1794, The History of the County of Cumberland (Carlisle) Vol. 1 p. 283 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Graham, T.H.B., 1913, 'The Townfields of Cumberland. Part II' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 13 p. 28 online copy

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

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