Nico Ditch

The Nico Ditch ( " Nico - ditch ", and occasionally Mickle Ditch or Nikker called ) is a man-made ditch that runs between Ashton -under- Lyne and Stretford through the southern suburbs of the major English city of Manchester. Dating and interpretation of the building is uncertain, but the trench was probably excavated between the end of the Roman period in the 5th century and the Norman invasion of England in the 11th century as a defense or as a boundary marker. The trench had originally but now built over a minimum length of 9.7 kilometers, is in many places. On the resulting locations of the trench has a width of three to four meters and is up to five feet deep. To the obtained sections include a 300 meter section on the site of a golf course in Denton. A 135 meter long section in Platt Fields Park is a listed building as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

History

The first written mention of the trench is found in a deed from the year 1190, in which the monks of Kersal Cell lands in Audenshaw be awarded. Here the ditch on the one hand is latin as Fossatum magnum ("great divide" ) and with the same major English name Mykelldiche (probably to Old English micel, "large" ) referred. An alternative interpretation sees the origin of the present name in the name of a water spirit of the Anglo-Saxon world of ideas, the Hnickar or Nickar; according to another theory, there is a connection with Old English nǽcan - " kill. "