Monument record MDO3721 - Iron Age finds from near Hambledon Hill, Child Okeford

The area around the Hill Fort has traces of Celtic field systems covering at least 12 acres. Many of the fields has been disturbed or even destroyed by later ploughing.

''GROUP (62): HAMBLEDON HILL (Child Okeford, Hanford and Iwerne Courtney). There are traces of 'Celtic' fields, now totalling some 12 acres, but certainly indicative of a much greater former acreage, at a number of points on the Chalk of Hambledon Hill, between about 300 ft. and 600 ft. O.D. All the fields have been disturbed by subsequent ploughing and most of them are immediately adjacent to the hill-fort, Child Okeford (22). The least disturbed, at ST 847117, are ½ mile from the hill-fort and the same distance from the enclosure, probably of the Iron Age, Hanford (6); these are the only typical remains. They lie W. of a yew plantation, which partly encroaches upon them, between 300 ft. and 500 ft. O.D. on the S.-facing slope of a spur. There are only the faintest traces S. of Hanford (6).
The fields around the hill-fort have been almost destroyed by strip and later ploughing at S.W., 840122-842123, but one lynchet survives 8 ft. high. N. of this, around 842124, there are banks down the slope (23 degrees to 25 degrees) forming at least three fields, the smallest covering ½ acre and the largest 1¾ acre. The steep slope and the exposed position suggest that the lynchet formation might have been caused by stock rather than by cultivation. The fields below the N.W. limb of the hill-fort were probably laid out before the final enlargement of the defences, but they appear to have been adapted to continued cultivation. There are further traces E. of the N.E. entrance to the hill-fort.
Air photographs: CPE/UK 1944: 2327-9 and 3328-9; Cambridge University Collections, oblique, BZ 34, 47 and 49. Keiller Collection, verticals (N.M.R.)'. (1)

<1> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 342 (Monograph). SDO136.

Record last edited

Oct 14 2014 1:12PM