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THREAD. The Fleam Dyke, Cambs., is a substantial 5km long, 7-8m high, bank with a ditch on its SW side. Its origins are enigmatic: perhaps late Roman, perhaps early medieval, or possibly much earlier ... (photo, wiki). 
2. There are 4 substantial earthworks, each a high bank with a ditch on its SW side, running for a no. of km across the chalk downland ridge that carries the Icknield Way across Cambs. - each begins in a wet/wetland landscape in the NW & ends in wooded clay uplands in the SE..
4. Excavation tends to suggest that all have late a Roman or early #AngloSaxon origins - but Bran Ditch has recently been shown to follow a Bronze Age alignment.... so they may be later, more substantial refurbishments of existing features (image: frrfd.org.uk/archaeology-an…)
5. Gil Burleigh has identified a series of Iron Age territorial boundaries running at similar intervals across the Ickniekd Way between Luton and Royston nharchsoc.org/projects/the-r…
6. But of course that begs the question of why, even if they did follow earlier alignments, the 4 Cambridgeshire dykes were constructed in the late 4th/early 5thC when others elsewhere were not.
7. The Devil’s Ditch is the most substantial of the 4 - it runs for 7.5 miles; its steeply-cut ditch is 70 feet deep in places. british-history.ac.uk/rchme/cambs/vo…. It is also the boundary of the Diocese of Norwich - once part of the ancient Diocese of East Anglia
8. Devil’s Dyke also bounded the early 7thC estate (now Staploe Hundred) of the E Anglian kings, centred on their royal vill at Exning where Æthelthryth, E Anglian princess & founder of Ely, was born. St Felix, 1st bishop of E Anglia, *may* have founded a minster nearby at Soham
9. As so often, this leave us with more questions than answers. Among others: why 4 substantial early medieval earthworks where one might have done? What was their purpose- was it necessarily defensive? & to what extent did they perpetuate - or not - more ancient traditions? END
