Monument record MDO40351 - Possible medieval field boundaries, Wimborne St Giles

Substantial banked linear earthworks to the west of Wimborne St Giles are visible on 1940s aerial photographs and on current Lidar imagery. The features may be field boundaries of medieval date, although an earlier (Iron Age to Romano-British) origin is possible. The features were digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project.

Substantial banked linear earthworks to the west of Wimborne St Giles are visible on 1940s aerial photographs and on current Lidar imagery (1 and 2).

The features are broadly aligned within a field pattern of medieval origin to the west of Wimborne St Giles and may be field boundaries of medieval date, although an earlier (Iron Age to Romano-British) origin is also possible (there are extensive areas of late prehistoric fields to the west along the River Allen Valley). The features may be associated with similar features to the south, northwest and northeast (MDO40350, MDO40352 and MDO40342). Together these features may form part of the medieval boundary division within an area of medieval open field to the southwest of Wimborne St Giles, defined by a clear curving exterior boundary line visible on the OS 1st Edition map (3). This area of open field may have been subsumed within the later medieval and post medieval formal landscape of St Giles's Park.

Some of the features are visible as cropmarks on a 2005 aerial photograph (4). The features were digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project.

<1> Royal Air Force, 20-MAR-45, RAF/106G/LA/187 RS 4100-1 (Aerial Photograph). SDO15695.

<2> XX-XXX-2015, Environment Agency DTM Lidar 1m (Aerial Photograph). SDO15442.

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1864, 1886, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch one (Map). SDO10239.

<4> Dorset County Council, 2005, Digital vertical aerial photographs (Aerial Photograph). SDO12570.

Record last edited

Nov 6 2019 1:19PM