Monument record MDO41048 - Probable post medieval drainage ditches, Leigh, Wimborne Minster

Ditched linear features on a strip of riverbank to the southwest of Leigh are visible on 1940's aerial photographs. The features may be drainage ditches of probable post medieval origin. Some features may alternatively be historic field boundaries, also of probable post medieval date, although an earlier origin is possible. They were digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project.

Ditched linear features on a strip of riverbank to the southwest of Leigh are visible on 1940s aerial photographs (1 and 2).

The features comprise a series of narrow rectilinear ditches situated within an irregular historic enclosure recorded on the OS 1st Edition map, the northern boundary of which is sinous and curvilinear in form and potentially of medieval origin (3). The eastern end of this boundary may have been formed of a curvilinear drainage ditch (3).

The features sub-divide this enclosure, extending north to south and northeast to south west along the length of the northern boundary, between the drainage channel and the river.

The features may be drainage ditches of post medieval date, although some features may alternatively be, or have dually functioned as, historic field boundaries, also of probable post medieval date but an earlier origin is possible.

The site is developed as part of a water works and sewage treatment plant on current Google Earth imagery and the features are no longer visible. They were digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP.

<1> Royal Air Force, 12-DEC-46, RAF/CPE/UK/1893 RS 4157-8 (Aerial Photograph). SDO16005.

<2> Royal Air Force, 17-JAN-47, RAF/CPE/UK/1934 RP 3189-90 (Aerial Photograph). SDO16006.

Record last edited

Oct 27 2020 11:55AM