Monument record MDO1686 - Cultivation remains, Melcombe Horsey

<1> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 172 (Monograph). SDO136.

'(10) CULTIVATION REMAINS. The date of enclosure of the two open-field systems in the parish is unknown. Groups of strip lynchets of the open fields of Melcombe Horsey lie around the former village on the lower slopes of the surrounding ring of Chalk hills (748030–742030–744021–753016). With one exception all the groups are of contour type, arranged in end-on furlong blocks up to 300 yds. long; most of the strip lynchets are in a fragmentary condition. On the S.E. side of the Dorsetshire Gap (745030) a series of strip lynchets runs obliquely across the contours, with treads up to 35 yds. wide. Air photographs (R.A.F. CPE/UK 1934: 3103–5 and 3179–81) show traces of the extensions of these strips to the S.E., and also traces of many other strip fields to the S.W. of (8). See also Hilton (29), (c), p. 113.
Strip lynchets of the open fields of Bingham's Melcombe are found on the N. and the N.E. slopes of Henning Hill. To the E. of Hill Barn (767017) are six contour strip lynchets, up to 200 yds. long; to the N.W. of Hill Barn (761019) are other fragmentary contour strip lynchets. Some 600 yds. N.W. of Bingham's Melcombe House there were formerly about 30 acres of strip fields but they have now been destroyed (R.A.F. CPE/UK 1934: 3106–8).'

Record last edited

May 22 2014 11:07AM