Monument record MDO2037 - Lynchets on Rocket Hill, Portesham

Medieval strip fields extending for over 2 kilometres along the hillside, from Portesham to West Waddon and Little Waddon.

Refer to record MDO2038 for further details.

'(32) Strip Fields, including contour and up-and-down types of strip lynchets, cover 88 acres W.N.W., N.E., and E. of Portesham village. Of six groups of remains the first three are clearly connected with Portesham itself. (d) and (e) may have belonged to West Waddon and (f) certainly belonged to Little Waddon. All except group (a), partly on the chalk, are on Jurassic limestone. Treads are up to 350 yds. long and 2 yds. to 10 yds. wide, and risers up to 8 ft. high. (R.A.F. V.A.P. CPE/UK 1934 : 1063-72)… (d) On the E. part of Rocket Hill (around 609859) well-marked contour strip lynchets are linked to remains of (c) by broad ridge-and-furrow (60828615) with ridges 11 yds. wide. At about 61158585, E. of a disused tramway causeway, four strip lynchets run up and down a slope of 14½˚. Risers 2 ft. to 4 ft. high with limestone rubble in their faces maintain a constant height. At the lower end they probably ran out on to the line of the present road (Winter’s Lane).' (1)

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 246 (Monograph). SDO149.

Record last edited

Mar 5 2012 3:22AM