23/2/17 UPDATE: ​WE HAVE LOTTERY FUNDING! More details here!
THE ROW DITCH is the remains of a bank & ditch running through Bartonsham Meadows, adjacent to the back gardens of houses on the south side of Park Street. Historic England have recognised the feature & because of its condition placed it on the “At Risk” register.
There are references to a “Rough Ditch” possibly dating back to the reign of Henry II in the mid 12th Century. In the 1880s the first Ordnance Survey map refers to it as “(Intrenchment) Constructed by the Scotch Army (A.D.1645)”. Later suggestions include an association with Offa's Dyke.
The aim of the project is to raise the awareness, public appreciation & understanding of the feature to ensure there is no further degradation of the feature & contribute towards its place in the wider history of the city. A geophysical survey of the feature was undertaken in March 2014 by Headland Archaeology.
The project has already received substantial support from Historic England & Hereford City Council, but it will only be possible to progress to fruition if a grant of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund is made available. An application to HLF should be in place by the end of 2015.
Support has also been received from Herefordshire Council, The Woolhope Club, Mr J. Matthews @ Bartonsham Farm Dairies (tenant) & the Church of England Commissioners (land owners).
Following a competitive tendering exercise arranged by Historic England, Herefordshire Archaeology, a department of Herefordshire Council, has been appointed by the group as project manager under the supervision of Archaeological Projects Manager, Tim Hoverd.
Assuming the Heritage Lottery Funding application is successful, it it hoped to undertake physical investigation work, by means of trench digging & augering during the spring / summer of 2016. If anyone fancies getting their hands dirty, there will be opportunities for the local community to become involved in the investigation.
Updates on the Rowditch project will be posted on the main BHG news page, where you can also subscribe to our e-bulletin.
What actually was the Row Ditch?
There have been several suggestions as to what it actually was, but none have been supported by scientific investigation.
More recently historians and archaeologists have been more sceptical and suggest that it was an ancient boundary between the Bartonsham Meadows, which were prone to flooding, and the arable land to the east of the Saxon/Medieval city, called the Portfield. The constant ploughing towards this boundary would have created a prominent bank, which until recently was visible at the bottom of the gardens of the houses in Park Street. The ditch below it may have acted as a ‘carrier’ to drain the water from the meadows towards the Yazor/Eign Brook – now beyond the railway embankment.
During March 2014, in far from perfect weather conditions, Headland Archaeology, assisted by students from the 6th Form College and members of the 1st Hereford Scout Troop, carried out gradiometer and resistivity surveys on the reputed line of Rowe Ditch, adjoining the Bartonsham Meadows. This was financed by English Heritage as a prelude to a community trenching project, for which an application is being made to the Lottery. The object was (1) to clarify the alluvial geology of the site where the young gravels of the meadows meet the older glacial deposits, which form the light soils of the Hereford Terrace and (2) to identify any anomalies along the route of the ditch such as informal tipping, organised dumping – from the Henry Wiggin site on Holmer Road in the 1960s - and electricity cables.
The site was divided into 20m blocks, with the gradiometer collecting 4 readings from each metre whilst the twin-probed resistivity meter was used at 1 metre intervals. The data was presented diagrammatically in colour by different tonal blocks. The gradiometer recorded much ferrous material located close to the gardens, which was contained within the domestic material that had been dumped since the mid-19th century and, presumably, the Wiggin deposit. It also picked up the route of the electricity cable. There was less magnetic material further out in the meadow, close to the fence. Here the resistivity survey showed high levels of resistance with consistent readings in excess of 130 ohm/m, which suggests the presence of a bank, whilst close to the gardens the readings were generally below 60 omh/m, which, in turn, implies the presence of a ditch.
Consistent levels of higher resistance occur close to Crozen Lane at the east end of the site and, with reservations, the author of the report suggests that there was probably less tipping here and the ditch maybe present to its full extent. For much of its length to the west, behind the houses, the ditch has been encroached upon by the gardens. The appearance of a ditch today beneath the garden boundaries is thus, an anomaly, caused by tipping, and not the historic ditch. Equally the bank to the south of the ditch has only been sporadically preserved. The geology was fairly confused but the ditch was cut into the earlier glacial deposits, whilst the bank was raised-up with the younger river gravels.
So basically Rowe Ditch is not a figment of the antiquarian imagination, picked up by militaristic ordnance surveyors, eager to find Civil War defences, but a real topographical feature 13 metres in width, with the bank on the river-side of the ditch against the arable Port Fields. In the age before JCBs, to build this would be a considerable undertaking, and one not carried out lightly.