Monument record MDO30715 - Prehistoric field system, Langton Matravers

An extensive series of wide low lynchest are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs to the north west of Langton Matravers village. The features are considered to be fragments of a prehistoric field system.

SY 989791 to SY 994789 to SY 992793. Very broken Iron Age/Romano-British 'Celtic' fields cover about 20 acres on the gentle north slope from a limestone ridge at Mount Misery. Lynchets are up to 6ft high but narrow rig and former village closes add to disturbance by quarrying and ploughing. <1>

An extensive series of wide low lynchets are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs to the north west of Langton Matravers village. The features are considered to be fragments of a prehistoric field system. <2-5> They are overlain by a medieval or later field system described in MDO30714. The site was digitally plotted during the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 632 (Monograph). SDO150.

<2> Royal Air Force, 04-NOV-1946, RAF/CPE/UK/1821 3402-3 (Aerial Photograph). SDO13397.

<3> Royal Air Force, 10-FEB-1945, RAF 106G/LA/128 7081-2 (Aerial Photograph). SDO13403.

<4> National Monuments Record, 21-FEB-2000, NMR SY9979/12-14 (NMR 19701/27-9) (Aerial Photograph). SDO13404.

<5> National Monuments Record, 21-FEB-2000, NMR SY9979/10-11 (NMR 18781/23-4) (Aerial Photograph). SDO13405.

<6> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/093 RCHME Inventory: Dorset II (South-East) (Unpublished document). SDO17434.

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 456472 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Apr 14 2023 4:59PM