More information : RR 728 Roman Road. Street Lane. Austhorpe - Woodlesford.
From its earlier name, Street Lane, it seems very probable that this straight road may be of Roman origin. It runs nearly due north and south along the eastern edge of the grounds of Temple Newsham and is now known as Bullerthorpe Lane. A parish boundary follows it for much of its length.
Where it borders Avenue Wood there is a high embankment, some 4 feet high, which in its present form may be an old park boundary of Temple Newsham, although this may have made use of an earlier feature, as the Street name suggests. (1)
SE 3579 3803 to SE 3737 2947. Grim's Ditch, previously considered to be a Roman road (RR 728), which it does resemble at points, has now ben identified as a Dark Age dyke. It runs north to south with the ditch to the east, and excavation has shown that the bank is formed from upcast material from the ditch. It is described (a) as a possible late 5th or 6th century division between the Kingdom of Elmet and the British enclave of Loidis. Faull and Moorhouse (b-c), however, state that at present the most probable context for the building of the dyke, together with Rudgate Dyke (SE 44 SE 29) and South Dike (LINEAR 75), would be as a defence of Elmet against the Anglo- Saxons in the early 7th century.
Much of the dyke is badly degraded and some sections have been completely ploughed out. In well preserved stretches the bank still stands up to 2.4m high with a ditch 9m-12m wide. At the northern end the dyke is covered by modern housing so that its true terminal point cannot be determined, while in the south it must originally have finished on the River Aire. (2)
SE 374 313 - SE 375 326, SE 376 329 - SE 376 332, SE 375 331 - SE 375 329. Grim's Ditch. Scheduled. (3)
See Linear Archive Files LINEAR 158 and RR 728 for further details(4)
Between SE 3584 3803 and SE 3646 3736 there is the mearest hint of a bank (earthwork) following just to the east of Grimes Dike stream. It is situated on the slope of a slight linear dip in the topography. This was unpottable at 1:10000 scale for the Lower Wharfedale NMP Project, and although much of it has now been built over, there might be sufficient remaining in the fields west of Birchfield Garth to warrant investigation at ground level.
(6)
A dyke of probable Iron Age date is visible as an earthwork on air photographs. Several sections can be seen between SE 3756 3281 and SE 3750 3202. These comprise either a denuded bank between 7m and 15m wide or a ditch between 4m and 6m wide. A further short section of ditch is visible at SE 3748 3050.
(7-8)
"Generally dating evidence suggests that the monument was created in the Early to Middle Iron Age, with a possible redefinition of it in the later Roman period. Significantly, there is no evidence from the recent excavations to support any notions of redefinition of the monument in the early medieval period."
(9) |