Monument record MDO2152 - Medieval strip field system, Upton, Poxwell

Parallel strip field boundaries of medieval origin are located on the south facing slopes to the north of Upton. The field boundaries are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs.

Parallel strip field boundaries of medieval origin are located on the south facing slopes to the north of Upton. The field boundaries are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs <1> and were digitally plotted during the South Dorset Ridgeway Mapping Project.

Contour-type strip lynchets are visible in the south of Poxwell parish (SY 738833). Up-and-down type strip lynchets and traces are also shown (but not described in text) in area centred SY 745833, on Medieval field plan (with SY 78 SW 38). <3>

The lynchets in the fields centred SY 73908325 and SY 74208335 have been reduced by ploughing in inconspicuous rounded scarps.
Lynchets are prominent north of the main road on a south-facing slope (SY 73568337 to SY 74108350) but have been mutilated by quarrying in places. 'Up and down' lynchets remain in the fields immediately north of Poxwell Big Wood (SY 74508335 to SY 75008335), some of them as narrow tree plantations. <4>

<1> Royal Air Force, 04-NOV-1946, RAF/CPE/UK/1821 4443-4 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11784.

<2> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1968, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1967, 135-139 (Serial). SDO67.

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 263 (Monograph). SDO149.

'(10) STRIP LYNCHETS: fragmentary remains at eight places, cover 41 acres. Traces of other strips just visible on air photographs, as well as characteristic angular indents in field banks and details on the Tithe Map of 1839, add to the picture of former open-field arrangements. These open fields seem to have covered virtually the whole parish E. of the curving boundary line linking Poxwell Grove (739848) to the angle in the parish boundary S.E. of Old Down Barn (734840). At the N.E. remains of open fields lie against the indented parish boundary with Watercombe. S. of this, other fields, possibly mediaeval in origin, cross the modern parish boundary into land recently transferred from Poxwell to Watercombe.
The remains are of contour type W. of the village (around 741847, 739842, 735839, 739837 ('Voscombe Mead' in 1839)), E. of the village (746837) and in the S. of the parish (738833). At 751846 ('High Sun Corner' in 1839) much-ploughed remains possibly represent former shallow strip lynchets. Around 744843, in the former East Field, they are of up-anddown type, butting against contour type. Treads are up to 300 yds. long and 20 yds. wide and risers up to 12 ft. high. (R.A.F. V.A.P. CPE/UK 1821:4443–5, 6435–7.) Evidence, found in 1967, shows Romano-British settlement on 'Celtic' fields under strip lynchets at 736840 (Dorset Procs. to come).'

<4> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F1 JGB 16-SEP-80 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<5> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/093 RCHME Inventory: Dorset II (South-East) (Unpublished document). SDO17434.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 454456 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Dec 9 2021 4:11PM