Monument record MDO30750 - Post medieval limestone quarrying, Wilkswood Farm, Langton Matravers

Hollows associated with post medieval limestone quarrying are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs taken in 1945. (1). The features are under scrub and no longer visible on the most recent Google Earth imagery. They were digitally plotted during the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project.

<1> Royal Air Force, 20-MAR-1945, RAF 106G/LA/187 4005-6 (Aerial Photograph). SDO13391.

<2> Papworth M, 1994, Eastington, Acton, Westwood, Wilkswood, New Barn, Corfe Castle Estate, Wessex Region, 53 (Unpublished document). SWX1388.

The remains of stone quarries which survive within Langton West Wood and Talbot Wood follow the line of outcrops of Purbeck Marble and Burr stone. Both of these were used particularly in the medieval period. Purbeck Marble was most popular for the architectural decoration in the 13th century and its use declined in the 14th and 15th century. Although a limestone it could be polished to appear like marble. Burr stone was used at Corfe Castle from the 12th to the 15th centuries as a freestone for ashlar work. Both stones were rarely quarried by the 16th century and the most easily worked beds had been exhausted by that time. Treswell’s map of 1586 shows that the quarry workings had become covered by woodland. This woodland still occupies the same ground today, presumably because the quarries rendered the ground unsuitable for other agricultural land uses. Some Purbeck Marble quarries may date to the Roman period as the stone was used for various purposes in that period. Disused hollow-ways and stone walls (112,794) are found within the wood and the quarries cut lynchets on the south-east side of Langton West wood (112,790) which appear to be medieval.

Record last edited

Dec 12 2018 12:22PM