Monument record MDO1607 - Flint deposits, Maiden Newton

Collections of flints placed in prepared positions in the form of shallow pits, visible as dark circular marks on air photographs. There are no piles of flint, the heaps levelled off at ground level, and in cases the pits are only half full. The flints could be the result of some form of field clearance, or collection for building purposes, but why a depression should be dug to accomodate them is obscure as is their age.

Area centred at SY 605946. A number of dark circular patches which appear on RAF air phtogoraphs CPE/UK/2431/4144-5, are patches of flints. These are not natural outcrops but collections of flints, all about fist-size, which have been placed in prepared positions. Each patch of flints is in a shallow basin or pit of varying size but on average 10.0 metres in diameter and 0.3 metres deep, cut into the chalky subsoil. The flints seem to have been gathered and placed in these basins, some of which are now only half full. In no case is there a heap of flints, all are levelled off at ground level. The flints could be the result of some form of field clearance, or collection for building purposes, but why a depression should be dug to accommodate them is obscure, as is their age. <1>

<1> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 22-JAN-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<2> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453605 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Nov 27 2024 9:59AM