Monument record MDO27506 - Chalk pit on Hambledon Hill, Child Okeford

A chalk pit shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1885. Two old chalk pits are visible as earthworks on the northwest side of Hambledon Hill, Child Okeford, on 1920s aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery. The features were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Between late May and late August 1996 the Cambridge and Exeter offices of RCHME carried out an earthwork survey and aerial photographic interpretation of the complex of monuments on Hambledon Hill as part of the project to record Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic period. Four marl quarries, probably of Post-Medieval origin, were recorded in the survey area. The two largest cut into the northern end of the hillfort spur, damaging the Iron Age ramparts. A map of 1767 indicates that the largest, centred at ST 8430 1310, was already of considerable size by that date. The Ordnance Survey First Edition indiactes that it expanded its scale of operation in the C19th, with a lime kiln on site, which survived until after 1901 (Second Edition). The other three marl pits were already disused by the late C19th. For further information, see RCHME Level 3 client report and plan at 1:1000 scale, held in Archive. <2>

Two old chalk pits are visible as earthworks on the northwest side of Hambledon Hill, Child Okeford, on 1920s aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery (ALK 1924; EA 2018). The features were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Alexander Keiller Collection, 14-JUL-1924, ALK 7431/249 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21516.

Environment Agency, xx-xxx-2018, Environment Agency National Lidar Programme DTM 1M (Aerial Photograph). SDO21483.

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch 1 (Map). SDO10239.

<2> RCHME: Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic (Monograph). SWX1665.

<2.1> Pryce, Benjamin, 1767, A plan of the parish of Shroton or Ewerne Courtney (Map). SDO20385.

<3> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1058885 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Nov 28 2025 3:47PM