The Gatehouse website record for Black Dyke

In the civil parish of Bardon Mill; Bellingham; Greystead; Haydon; Simonburn; Wark. In the historic county of Northumberland (Modern Authority of Northumberland, 1974 county of Northumberland).

Of date, the Black Dyke stretches between the North and South Tynes cutting off an area of 48,000 acres. Possibly constructed to prevent cattle raiding. It was seen as an earthwork and mapped from air photographs. Visible as an earthen bank with a ditch on the west side, this linear boundary is sometimes seen intermittently and now has a later stone wall running on top for most of its course. In some places this wall now forms the parish boundary. The northern part of the course of this feature may now lie within an extensive forestry plantation. Although the air photography which was available to the project included photographs taken before the creation of the plantations, nevertheless the feature could not be identified to the north of Whitelee Cleugh. This monument is usually dated as prehistoric but PastScape does give a possible medieval date as well although the fact that parish boundaries follow the line of the dyke suggests it pre dates the medieval period in construction although possible medieval maintaince and use cannot be total excluded.

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is NY806647

Sources of information, references and further reading

This site's English Heritage (PastScape) Defra or Monument number is 1066037; 1393614
This site's County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number is N6951; N7854 'grey' literature, such as watching brief reports, held by H.E.R.s is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded in this website.

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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.

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