Monument record MDO2890 - Mount Pleasant, West Stafford

A large Neolithic henge enclosure visible as slight earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs. This monument, which was partly excavated by Wainwright in 1970-71, comprises a ditch and outer bank around an irregular oval area, with four entrances. Principal features of the interior are a palisade trench on the inner side of the ditch and a structure comprising five concentric circles of post holes within a ditch.

A Neolithic henge monument is visible as earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs, situated on a low ridge running east-west between the valley of the Frome to the north and the South Winterbourne to the south. {1}.

Excavations undertaken there by Geoffrey Wainwright in 1970-71 demonstrated that the surviving earthworks were the eroded remnant of an enormous earthen enclosure comprising a massive bank with internal berm and ditch, the total dimensions being 370m east-west by 340m north-south. Geophysical survey suggested 4 entrances in total, located to the west, north, east and south-east.

The geophysical survey also revealed a massive and continuous palisade running within and concentric to the henge ditch. Enclosing an area measuring circa 270m east-west by 245m north-south, the palisade trench would have supported a wall of timbers perhaps 6 metres high, yet only two extremely narrow entrances could be found through this enormous timber barrier.

Within the enclosure’s interior, excavation revealed the site of a complex timber and sarsen structure surrounded by a ditch 43m in diameter. Known as Site IV, the ditch enclosed five broadly concentric rings of post holes, plus a series of larger pits representing a sarsen ‘cove’ plus outliers.

Radiocarbon dates obtained from excavated samples of the henge provide a broad outline chronology that places the main earthwork enclosure within the early-to-mid 3rd millennium BC (2878-2470 cal BC). Site IV appears to begin life in the later centuries of the 3rd millennium BC while the palisade was constructed around 2000 BC.

Finds and features point to continuing, if intermittent, activity including a Bronze Age barrow, known as Conquer Barrow (MDO2888), which was constructed on top of the bank on the western side of the henge, as well as an Iron Age round house (MDO20949) and a Romano-British rectilinear enclosure (MDO20948), both of which partly overly Site IV. Two Saxon burials were also uncovered here, both extended inhumations. One was found by the western entrance of the enclosure, the other within a ditch. {2}

Woodward, P J, 1986, Observations along the Wessex Water Authority supply pipe: Alington Avenue and Mount Pleasant (Article in serial). SDO9671.

Barber, Martyn, 2014, Mount Pleasant, Dorset. A Survey of the Neolithic 'Henge Enclosure' and Associated Features (Monograph). SDO14409.

Linford, N, Linford, P, and Payne, A, 2019, Mount Pleasant, West Stafford, Dorset. Report on Geophyisical Surveys, March and August 2019 (Unpublished document). SDO16573.

<1> 02-MAY-1993, NMR OS/93105 034 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10984.

<1> Royal Air Force, 17-APR-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/2018 4012-14 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10921.

<1> Barber, M, 2005, Mount Pleasant 2005 plot (Cartographic materials). SDO10978.

<1> Barber, M, 2008, Mount Pleasant Draft Archive Report 2008 (Unpublished document). SDO10981.

<2> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1971, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1970, 126 (Serial). SDO70.

<2> Wainwright, G J, 1979, Mount Pleasant. Dorset: Excavations 1970-1971 (Monograph). SDO10986.

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 504 (Monograph). SDO150.

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 504 (Monograph). SDO150.

'(24) ENCLOSURE, oval, probably a Neolithic 'henge' monument (SY 78 NW; 710899), lies across a low hill called Mount Pleasant with gentle slopes on all but the N. where the fall, to the R. Frome, is steeper. The enclosing bank only remains on the S. side and the whole site has been heavily ploughed except for the coppice around Conquer Barrow, a large, much disturbed, mound apparently built on the bank at the W.
The bank is of loosely-packed chalk and earth, spread over a width of 50 ft. or more, and, where best preserved, stood about 5 ft. above the old ground surface. Within the bank was a shallow ditch generally 50 ft. to 60 ft. wide. The simple causewayed entrance at the S.E. is certainly original.
Air photographs indicate that when complete the enclosure measured internally about 1150 ft. (E. to W.) by 1000 ft. and covered 12 acres. The area and the position of the existing entrance suggest that it was probably a 'henge' of Atkinson's Class II and would therefore have had an opposed entrance at the N.W., but there are no indications of such an entrance. Warne called it 'Vespasian's Camp' and recorded the finding of 'a sword and a few ancient relics' (Ancient Dorset, 150–1, 242).
Conquer Barrow (22) is about 90 ft. in diameter and lies on the W. bank of the enclosure at the highest point of the hill (see plan). It has a flat top 24 ft. across and on the E. is 7 ft. high above a shelf 24 ft. wide, possibly representing part of the original top of the bank, from which there is another drop to a 'berm' immediately above the inner ditch. On the W. the mound falls 15 ft. without a break to a very disturbed sloping shelf up to 30 ft. wide. A bank 2 ft. high and 10 ft. across runs up to the outer edge of this from the S. This shelf could be due to interference, perhaps deliberate remodelling connected with the name 'Mount Pleasant'. Conquer Barrow is probably a Bronze Age round barrow since its situation on the bank of a Neolithic earthwork has parallels (e.g. Robin Hood's Ball, Shrewton, Wilts.). It is shown without the 'henge' on I. Taylor's one inch map of Dorset (1765). It has been suggested that another barrow (23) existed at the centre of the enclosure but the traces are very slight (R. J. C. Atkinson etc., Excavations at Dorchester, Oxon. (First Report) (1951), 94, 95; S. and C. M. Piggott, Antiquity XIII (1939), 158; R.A.F. V.A.P. CPE/UK 1934: 5081–3; 58/271: 5128–30).'

Record last edited

Jan 16 2025 7:06PM