Fleam Dyke is a linear earthwork some 5km in length, built in phases between the mid-4th and the mid-7th centuries. The path along the top leads to Mutlow Hill, where the Dyke (now 8m/26ft in height) skirts a Bronze Age barrow. Mutlow’s name, derived from ‘moot’, indicates that this was a place of early medieval assembly, and it is a good point from which to look down on the prehistoric Icknield Way, sometimes called England’s oldest road.
Travellers passing along that ancient track would be forced to stop at this point by the sheer height of the dyke and the depth of its parallel ditch. With densely wooded hills on one side and wet areas of springs, rivers, and fens on the other, it would have been difficult to circumvent this formidable barrier.
It has been argued that the dyke was built by Continental migrants to defend their core settlements in East Anglia from Romano-British and later counter-attacks. Perhaps it was also intended to channel travellers along the Roman road now known as Worsted Street (suggestive of a link with the cloth trade) that runs parallel to the dyke. Unable to pass further along the Icknield Way, this road offered an alternative route that might have led to a customs barrier.
Raksha Dave on the future of archaeology