Monument record MDO3973 - Enclosed field system, Hilton

(Centred at ST 774045). Field systems plotted from air photographs. <1>

A combination of Celtic fields and strip lynchets. <2>

For the northern portion of this field system, see air photographs. None were available for the remainder of the area, and the boundary was supplied entirely from field observation.

An Iron Age/Romano-British type field system with no trace of Medieval superimpositions on this sheet. The majority of the area falls on the western slopes of a ridge which is partly under grass and partly under high crops. The system consists in the main of fairly pronounced but scattered field banks and lynchets forming rectilinear enclosures. The most prominent evidence is in Cuckoo Lane where lynchets and field banks are pronounced. <3>

<1> Atkinson, R J C, 1949, spec 6 inch (RJCA 1.3.49) (Map). SWX1583.

<2> RCHM Mss file (Unpublished document). SWX2467.

<3> Rigg, J, Field Investigators Comments JR, F1 JR 15-AUG-55 (Unpublished document). SWX1255.

<3.1> Royal Air Force, 22-JAN-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 4341-2 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17525.

<4> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 335 (Monograph). SDO136.

'GROUP (50): CUCKOO LANE (Hilton and Stoke Wake).'Celtic' fields, considerably altered, survive on parts of the W.-facing slopes of the spur S. from Bulbarrow, between 600 ft. and 800 ft. O.D., partly on Clay-with-flints over the Chalk. They formerly extended into Stoke West arish where, N. of Bulbarrow, dyke (7) impinges on fragmentary remains. A pattern is detectable only over some 8 acres immediately W. of Cuckoo Lane, extending N. from ST 774048 to the boundary with Stoke Wake parish. A series of roughly parallel E.-W. lynchets 30 yds. To 40 yds. Apart runs down the slope to a substantial lynchet on the W. shoulder of the spur. N.-S. field divisions between them are generally destroyed or altered. There is a double-lynchet with lower scarp 7 ft. high running S. for 80 yds. From the parish boundary at 77450412.
Air photographs: CPE/UK 1934: 1078-9'

<5> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/096 RCHME Inventory: Dorset III (Central), RCH01/096 (Unpublished document). SDO17384.

RCHME Inventory: A large collection of archives relating to the RCHME Dorset Inventory Volume III, published in 1970. It contains field surveys and excavation archive. Parish files containing original surveys have been given child collection status.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 201803 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Nov 29 2022 3:05PM