Monument record MDO21602 - Litton Cheney: enclosure, boundary or cross ridge dyke

"Double fosse rectangular site - much gorse". <2>

This earthwork has been greatly denuded by ploughing, and the ditches described in Authy 1 as being 2.5 ft and 4.5 ft deep are now barely 0.2m deep, and the banks 0.2m high. Only the lynchet forming the NW side of the site is prominent and averages 0.5m high. It may well have been an enclosre, but there is not the slightest evidence of any human habitation within its perimeter. While present observation is unsatisfactory it seems possible that the earthwork was a junction of two fieldways within a field system, of Iron Age/Romano-British type. The site is distinctly visible on AP. <4>

This earthwork is now interpreted as a cross ridge dyke and has two ditches with a medial and south bank. It is a unique form and only partly complete. The highest bank is 4.5 ft high.

In Authy 3 such dykes were recorded as individual monuments but recentwork by the Royal Commission's investigators suggest that they should be treated as a group, in this case centred around Compton Abbas ((nowWest Compton) see SY 59 SW 24, 30, 31, 32). Their arcuate dispositionsuggests that they were boundaries, perhaps of territorial significance, although this individual dyke is not on a true spur or ridge and may be different. <5>

Banks and ditches, visible as earthworks on aerial photographs <6>. The features include a wide multi-bank and ditched linear feature which has been previously interpreted as a cross dyke. The site is marked as 'Enclosure' on the OS 1:10,000 map and 'Earthwork' on the OS 1st edition map. These features are considered likely to be prehistoric in origin, possibly boundaries.

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1903 (Map). SWX1540.

[SY 55539343] Earthwork (NR)

<2> Crawford, O G S, Annotated record map 6 inch (Map). SWX7265.

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, 1952, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume I (West), 137 (Monograph). SDO97.

'(21) Earthwork, near the N. edge of the parish and to the E. of (11), consists of two ditches with medial and S. banks extending E. and W. between a roadway and a track to the W. of it. W. of the track the ditches diverge and are shortly lost in the hill-slope. At the E. end, the inner ditch dies out but the outer ditch seems to have been returned to the N.W. and perhaps returned again to the W. to form three sides of an enclosure. Where best preserved the outer ditch is about 4½ ft. deep and the inner ditch 2½ ft. It is possible that these banks represent the enclosures of a settlement.'

<4> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 01-MAR-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<4.1> Royal Air Force, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 4152 (Aerial Photograph). SDO20072.

<5> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Unpublished revision RCHME Dorset I (West) Undated (Compton Abbas file) (Unpublished document). SDO20070.

<6> Royal Air Force, 22-JAN-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 4151-2 (Aerial Photograph). SDO11074.

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 450939 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 24 2023 4:52PM