Hanging Walls of Mark Anthony

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The Hanging Walls of Mark Anthony

The Hanging Walls of Mark Anthony are an area of mediæval lynchets (cultivation terraces) and a building platform found on the hillside above Kirkland and Blencarn in eastern Cumberland, on the lower slopes of Cross Fell. The Hanging Walls are today a scheduled ancient monument.[1]

The track of a Roman road runs up the hill slope at this point, heading north, and this may have influenced the name which later ages gave to the feature.

Description

The Hanging Walls of Mark Anthony in the form of strip lynchets provide distinctive indications of mediæval techniques employed to cultivate these steep slopes: they increased the land available for cultivation by the construction of terraces on the slopes. The shape indicates that the fields formed by such terracing were used as a part of the strip tenurial system of mediæval land division.

Lynchets and the building platform are reasonably well-preserved and provide insight into mediæval farming practice. Due to their prominent position they are a significant landmark in the local landscape and will contain archaeological deposits relating to their construction, use and abandonment.

The site is situated on a hillock next to Ran Beck. The terraces lie on the breast of the hillock overlooking the beck and are laid out with two terraces, fanning out into four terraces and then returning to two terraces again. Ramps between terraces are preserved as earthworks.

There is also an unenclosed spring known as Mark Anthony’s Well at the west end of the site and on the top of the hillock are the foundations of a circular building and a revetted bank.

References

  1. National Heritage List 1007135: The Hanging Walls of Mark Anthony