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Little is known about Anglo-Saxon Dogsthorpe except that during the late tenth-century a hamlet named Doddesthorp was controlled by Peterborough Abbey. However, between AD 140 and 180 the area must have been a hive of activity when the Roman legions, perhaps complemented by a local workforce, set about excavating a watercourse, now named Car Dyke, which separated Dogsthorpe from Borough Fen. Car Dyke was a massive project. Almost as long as Hadrian’s Wall, it stretched 122 kilometres along the fen-edge from Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, across the River Welland at Deeping St. James and northwards to join the River Witham south of Lincoln. The antiquarian John Bridges (1666-1724) observed that near Newark, Dogsthorpe’s neighbouring parish, the waterway measured ‘about forty feet from bank to bank’. Car Dyke is still visible to the north of Hill Close shopping parade on Newark Hill until it is culverted beneath the road. It then can be traced as a wide depression along the course of the old Eye Road, marked by a line of weeping willows.
Bridges’ contemporary, William Stukeley (1677-1765) proposed that Car Dyke was constructed expressly for the movement of troops and goods. Now it is generally understood to have functioned as a ‘catchwater’ drain, an early form of flood protection, rather than as a conventional canal, although it is feasible that it was used for transportation on a local basis.
Unfortunately, we have no idea what the Romans called Car Dyke for its earliest citations suggest that the term was twelfth century in origin. It is believed to be a corruption of Karesdik, a combination of the Old English word dic meaning ‘ditch or embankment’ and the Old Norse personal name Kárr, possibly an individual of Scandinavian descent who became associated with the watercourse.
However, there it appears that that the Romans also were active in other parts of Dogsthorpe. In January 2007, prior to the development of Wesleyan Lane (behind the Bluebell Inn), excavations by Cambridge Archaeology uncovered evidence of continuous domestic occupation during the Iron Age and Roman periods. A footpath of similar date led from the present allotments to an unknown destination. The colony, which undisputedly pre-dated Car Dyke over a kilometre to the east, obtained its water supply from a stream that disappeared long ago. Moreover, since the settlement was close to the heart of medieval Dogsthorpe, it is tempting to speculate that its pioneering Iron-Age and Roman inhabitants laid down the foundations for our modern community.
Dr Avril Lumley Prior
12 December 2007
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