Monument record MDO3433 - Medieval settlement of West Woodsford, Woodsford

SY 760 905 Deserted Medieval Village of Woodsford. (3)

Nearly all of this Medieval settlement has been destroyed by ploughing. The only features remaining are bank and ditch from SY 75869035 to SY 75929029, (considerably reduced by ploughing), and the eastern part of a hollow-way from SY 75939051 to SY 76009056. Not surveyed. (4)

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1902 (Map). SWX1540.

(Centred SY 760905) Woodsford Strangways) (NR)
(site of) (NAT)

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 400-402 (Monograph). SDO149.

‘(4) SETTLEMENT REMAINS (760905), formerly part of West Woodsford village and now almost destroyed, covered nearly 10 acres immediately S.E. and E. of Woodsford Castle (2). Woodsford was surveyed in Domesday Book as two parcels, the eastern apparently held by Cerne Abbey and the western by William Belet, whose family retained the connections until the time of Edward II; the name Woodsford Strangways is derived from the family which obtained the western manor in c. 1500. An 'Est Werdesford' is mentioned in 1268, and Woodsford Farm is probably on the site of its manor house; E. of the farm traces of strip divisions, perhaps village closes, appear on air photographs. The boundary between the two manors in 1775 ran S. from the Frome, curving W. to include the church in E. Woodsford. (Hutchins I, 453; Fägersten, 149.)
The remains at West Woodsford lie on a rounded welldrained ridge of valley gravel with outcropping Bagshot Beds which slopes gently from S.W. to N.E. at about 130 ft. above O.D. and about 10 ft. above the flood plain of the Frome to the N. To the S. a stream formerly flowed N.E. A large pond was made in its valley and cut into three closes.
On the N. of the ridge a hollow-way running N.E., perhaps the original village street, is about 3 ft. deep and 10 ft. to 12 ft. across. A spread of flints on the S. side of it has concentrations of 13th and 14th-century and later pottery and some squared chalk blocks. These are doubtless traces of 'the marks of dwelling-houses and small enclosures' which lay'south of an old road to the ford' (Hutchins I, 453). Nine strip-like closes up to 500 ft. long and from 60 ft. to 125 ft. wide straddle the ridge S. of the hollow-way and dip into the valley. These were divided by scarps I ft. to 2 ft. high which have been largely destroyed. In the field S. of the castle a surviving scarp has traces of a ditch below it. The present road S.E. of the castle cuts these closes and narrow rig to the E., but appears on O.S. drawings of 1805–6.
To the S.W. of the closes a bank about 30 ft. across stands up to 4 ft. high above a flat-bottomed ditch running N.W.S.E. which may have been a sunken road. Immediately W. a block of broad rig runs up to a headland about 8 ft. wide. Whatever may be the date of this rig, the bank probably represents the boundary between the open fields and the village closes at this point. From the S.E. end of the possible sunken road another ditch or hollow-way ran S.W. on the line of the old stream and appears to have met the line of an 'old road, now disused', marked ¼ mile S. of the church on I. Taylor's estate map of about 1775. (R.A.F. V.A.P. CPE/UK 1934 : 2076.)’

<3> Beresford, M, and Hurst, J G, 1971, Deserted Medieval Villages, 186 (Monograph). SWX1568.

<4> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F1 JGB 16-JAN-81 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<5> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1994, Medieval Village Research Group Index, PRN 472 (Index). SDO16386.

<6> Historic England, Historic England Archive, RCH01/093 (Index). SDO14738.

RCHME Inventory: Dorset II (South-East) A collection of archive relating to the Dorset inventory Volume Dorset II (South East). The archive consists of a wide range of material including original field notes, surveys, profiles, photographs and negatives, measured drawings, and publication proofs, and correspondence.

<7> Historic England, Historic England Archive, 883810 (Index). SDO14738.

RCHME: Woodsford DMV, Dorset

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 454852 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

May 10 2022 12:46PM