Monument record MDO21052 - Charminster Down: field system

Centred SY 669941. Iron Age/Romano-British type field system consisting of pronounced lynchets and field banks, forming rectilinear enclosures at SY 666940; SY 670940 and SY 670943. Under pasture crop.

Fragmentary remains of lynchets, under pasture, are also visible at SY 666945 but elsewhere in the area delineated, the ground is arable and there are no traces of the field system. <1>

On the shoulder and sides of Haydon Hill, 'Celtic' field fragments survive in a thin line extending for 700 yds south-east from SY 668946 by Walls Coppice. <2>

The former open fields of Charminster situated on Haydon Hill (SY 671943) consisted of some 40 acres of fragmentary contour and cross-contour strip lynchets, up to 250 yds long with massive risers up to 15ft high, arranged in end-on and butting furlongs. The north part of these lay in Middle Field until 1837, the remainder were enclosed in 1587. <3>

The present remains approximate to the description and measurements of Authority (2), though they are now in a reduced state. <4>

An extensive celtic field system is visible as low earthwork lynchets and cropmarks on aerial photographs and LiDAR imagery <5-8> on Charminster Down and Haydon Hill.

<1> Swatridge, G C, Various, Field Investigators Comments GCS, F1 GCS 27-JAN-55 (Unpublished document). SWX1169.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 72 (Monograph). SDO146.

<2.1> 1912, Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries 13, 162-70 (Serial). SWX1897.

<3> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 322 (Monograph). SDO136.

<4> Attrill, N J, Field Investigators Comments NJA, F2 NJA 23-MAR-81 (Unpublished document). SDO14743.

<5> Royal Air Force, 22-JAN-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 4133-5 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10893.

<6> Royal Air Force, 27-OCT-1971, RAF/39/3817 0141-2 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10898.

<7> 15-SEP-1979, NMR OS/79123 217-8 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11037.

<8> NOV-2006, D0067624 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10904.

<9> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/096 RCHME Inventory: Dorset III (Central) (Unpublished document). SDO17384.

<10> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453268 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jul 28 2023 4:01PM