Eldbotle Wood

NT58NW 31 5016 8574 to 4989 8525

Bank across the north end of the ridge, just south of Marine Villa and apparently disturbed by recorded wartime disturbance. Apparently 12m wide and 72.8m long, with a gap almost in the middle, approached on the north by an apparent ramp over a possible wide, broad ditch on the south. It might be the freak consequence of the known wartime building of an observation station or an old sand-dune.

From NT 5026 8580 to NT 500 856 in a curving line almost 380m long is a scarp bank on the SE facing slope of the hill, apparently 13m wide. This feature is particulary evident since it is covered by a thick growth of grass. the possible bank encloses an area of almost 3.5 hectares.

C Aliaga-Kelly 1985

This linear earthwork was fully surveyed and recorded. As surviving, it runs across the north end of the ridge, from the track eastwards, for a distance of c70 metres, being a bank c12 metres wide or a little less (NT 5016 8574 - NT 5022 8570). Disturbed ground lies both to north and to south of the bank, more noticeably in the former case and perhaps representing the vestiges of an accompanying ditch. Roughly halfway along this length, a c5 metre wide causeway leads across the putative ditch, as if representing an entrance.

Beyond this stretch there is a 15 metre gap where the bank has disappeared. Thereafter (NT 5024 8570), a pronounced scarp runs off in a SW direction, a natural feature which appears to have been artificially enhanced to create a more prominent bank. For some 255 metres this had clearly defined front and back edges. Beyond that, the unenhanced scarp continues in a curving line for a total length of 575 metres, before petering out completely (NT 4989 8525). There seems to be at least one and possibly three deliberate breaks in its line, where possible entrances are marked by paths leading obliquely up the scarp. It seems most likely that this feature represents the remains of two sides of an enclosure of the ridge occupied by Eldbotle Wood. No trace of the putative remaining sides survive. Test pits were opened at the north end of the ridge, within the line of the best surviving stretch of bank. This revealed a hard-packed black soil some 0.40 metres beneath current ground level, clearly representative of an old land surface and strongly suggestive of human occupation.

A F Leslie 1991