Monument record MDO2075 - Prehistoric field system on Ridge Hill, Portesham

Earthworks of an Iron Age/Romano British-type field system. Noted from ground observations and visible as earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs

Area centred SY 648864. An Iron Age/Romano British-type field system plotted partly from air photographs and partly from ground observation. At SY 64438653 a pronounced north-south lynchet runs parallel to the contours and at SY 64758655 field banks and lynchets averaging 1.0m high and forming rectilinear enclosures are visible. A field bank crosses a weak contour at SY 65158647 where a
contour-following lynchet is also visible; a lynchet, up to 4.5m high with corner angle can also be seen at SY 64948639. <1>

Broken remains of 'Celtic' fields cover 20 acres immediately south of the Ridgeway, around SY 647865. The field bank and lynchets at SY 65158647 and SY 64948639 lie in permanent pasture and are as described by Authority 1,but the greater part of the field system in this area was under standing crops at the time of field visit. It is likely however that any remains will have been considerably reduced by ploughing. <2>

Also visible as earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs <4-6>. Remains comprise of banks and ditches, some interconnected via trackways. These features were digitally plotted during the South Dorset Ridgeway Mapping Project.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 625-627 (Monograph). SDO150.

‘Group (6): Shorn Hill to Ridge Hill (SY 68 NW, NE; 631876-657869; Fig. p. 626), in Winterborne St. Martin and Portesham parishes, includes ‘Celtic’ fields and undated long fields. Broken remains of ‘Celtic’ fields cover at least 20 acres immediately s. of it, about 647865. The most prominent, though very incomplete in plan and not illustrated, are at the extreme E., N. of Ridge Hill, covering 12 acres around 655868. Fragments extend N. of these on the spur top and in the valley W. of it leading to Ashton Cottages. Most are on chalk but some, S. of Shorn Hill, are on a sandy wash and pebble capping. There are only two complete fields, each of about ¼ acre, but original field sides are between 30 yds. and 60 yds. long. Lynchets are up to 8 ft. high, N. of Ridge Hill, on a maximum slope of 15˚. Subsequent cultivation has flattened many former field divisions and in places has left ‘Celtic’ lynchets in continuous lines along the contours giving a misleading effect of strip fields, as on the S.E. side of Great Hill. A slight boundary bank and ditch, of mediaeval or later date, runs N. from a round barrow (Winterborne St. Martin (58)).

N.W. of Shorn Hill and S.W. of Great Hill are long narrow fields, apparently later than the normal ‘Celtic’ fields but bounded by contour lynchets or, up and down hill, by low flinty banks. In places they may have utilised the lynchets of previous fields as boundaries. Complete fields are usually 20 yds. or 37 yds. wide and from 100 yds. to 160 yds. long. On Great Hill faint taces of slight banked fields of similar type have been much disturbed by narrow rig ploughing. In proportion and form these long fields are akin to ‘Celtic’ long fields, elsewhere thought to be Romano-British, but some dobt arises from their extent and from the absence of a know Romano-British settlement. There are relatively recent downland fields of this form (e.g. near Stratton, around 652950), while mediaeval cultivation of the downland is attested for Winterborne Asshe (Ashton, Inquisitions post mortem, P.R.O., C. 142/216/29). By 1765 some of the enclosed strips of Winterborne St. Martin resembled in plan these long fields (cf. Isaac Taylor’s map of Town Field Farm in D.C.R.O). (R.A.F. V.A.P. CPE/UK 1934: 1063-66 and 3909-94).‘

<2> Rigg, J, Field Investigators Comments JR, F1 JR 31-JUL-54 (Unpublished document). SWX1255.

<2.1> Royal Air Force, 22-1-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 3295-6 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11932.

<3> Royal Air Force, 04-NOV-1946, RAF/CPE/UK/1824 3293-5 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11893.

<4> Royal Air Force, 17-1-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1934 1063-5 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11906.

<5> 26-3-1968, NMR SY6486/1 (178) (Aerial Photograph). SDO11936.

<6> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/088 RCHME Inventory: Dorset I (West) and Revision (Unpublished document). SDO17367.

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 452473 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Oct 27 2023 9:05AM