Historic England say Dane John Mound in Canterbury is "at risk" due to erosion

KentOnline / KMTV

An area of a well-known park in Canterbury has been put on an 'at risk' register.  Historic England say the Dane John Mound is eroding and needs urgent repairs.  It's part of the remains of a castle and includes a spiral path and monument on top.  Marion Brinton is from Historic England.

Transcript

00:00 mound is the remains of a Motte and Bailey castle, so the Motte being the large mound upon which

00:07 there would have been a kind of a defendable structure at the top. So, and it sat within

00:14 obviously the historic city walls of Canterbury, so it's right in the heart of Canterbury and it

00:20 currently sits within an open park, so there's good public access to the mound. And there's

00:28 a spiral path that goes up the mound because obviously people love going up there because

00:32 you get fantastic views across the city from up there, but effectively it's been the kind of victim

00:40 of its own success or its own popularity because the number of visitors going up the path is

00:47 causing erosion of the mound itself, which is obviously important archaeologically, it's a

00:53 scheduled monument. So there are repairs needed to repair the paths, there's a pinnacle, a monument

01:02 at the top as well and that's being undermined and ultimately if we don't sort that out that

01:08 could topple off, so that's, it's for those reasons that it's on the at-risk register.

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