Monument record MDO3738 - Strip lynchets on Melbury Hill, Compton Abbas

Earthwork remains of strip fields on Melbury Hill formed part of the open fields of Compton Abbas. These fields were part of Forked Bridge Field.

ST 868192 - ST 871195 Well preserved contour strip lynchets representing part of Incombe Field, one of the former open fields of the parish. <1-2>

ST 86931915 - ST 87091961. A flight of three extremely well preserved Medieval type contour lynchets running around the lower east side of Melbury hill. Terraces average 13.0 m wide, 2.5 m high, and extend north east/south west for some 500.0 m. Now under pasture. Centred ST 86731918: Fine lunchets up to 2.0 m high and of average 6.0 m wide, extend for about 240.0 m around the west facing tip of a small outlying spur. Grass covered. Detail depicted on OS 25' <3.1>; lynchets well defined on OS air photographs <3.2>. <3>

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1972, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume IV (North), 14 (Monograph). SDO99.

MEDIAEVAL AND LATER EARTHWORKS
(11) CULTIVATION REMAINS. The date of enclosure of the open fields is unknown. A late 18th or early 19th-century map (D.C.R.O.) shows nine separate open fields, all apparently in the last stages of piecemeal enclosure; they existed substantially un-altered in 1844 (Tithe Map). Well preserved contour and cross-contour strip lynchets in four places in the parish represent some of these fields: those on the N. and N.E. slopes of Elbury Hill (863183) were in Hawkam Field; those on the W. of Melbury Hill (868192) were in Incombe Field; those on the S. and E. of Melbury Hill (871195) were in Forked Bridge Field; those on the N.W. slopes of Fontmell Down (877182) were in Culverland Field.

<2> Royal Air Force, 11-JUL-1946, RAF 106G/UK/1654 4325-6 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17873.

<3> Barrett, G, Various, Field Investigators Comments GB, F1 GB 12-JAN-78 (Unpublished document). SDO17369.

<3.1> Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 scale, 1928 (Map). SWX1197.

<3.2> Ordnance Survey, 6.6.75, OS 75/371 192-3 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17872.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 205845 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Mar 22 2022 1:30PM