Monument record MDO43046 - Great Ditch, a possible Iron Age cross dyke on Hillfield Hill, Hillfield

Banked and ditched linear features are visible as faint and indistinct earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs. The features coincide with a linear earthwork recorded as 'Great Ditch' on the OS 1st and 2nd Edition maps. They may be a section of prehistoric cross dyke, potentially of Iron Age origin. The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project.

Banked and ditched linear features are visible as faint and indistinct earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs on Hillfield Hill, Hillfield (1). The form of the features is not clear as the image resolution is poor but they appear to comprise short section of parallel linear banks and a section of linear ditch on a broadly N-S axis. Later historic field boundaries cross the site on a SW-NE and SE-NW alignment and clearly post-date the feature, which coincides with a linear earthwork recorded as 'Great Ditch' on the OS 1st and 2nd Edition maps. It may be part of a prehistoric cross dyke, potentially of Iron Age origin. The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project.

The feature is under trees and not visible on current Google Earth imagery.

(ST 63970425) Great Ditch (NR). (1)

A bank, with ditch on W side, can be traced for 150 yards across the boundary between the parishes of Hilfield and Up Cerne. It probably extended across the ridge top and in its best preserved part the bank is about 9 feet wide and 9 inches high while the ditch is 16 feet wide and 2 to 3 feet deep. (2)

"Great Ditch" (name not verifiable) formerly extended from ST 63950435 to ST 63070421, obliquely crossing the ridge in a NNW-SSE direction.

At ST 63040430 it was cut by a ridgeway road. The 100m stretch to the SE of the road has since 1952 been completely destroyed by ploughing and the 50m NW of the road now survives as a ditch 7.0m wide and 0.5m deep terminating on the steep NW face of a combe.

The situation and former extent suggests that it was a 'cross-ridge dyke' type of boundary work.

Remains surveyed at 1:2500. (3)

National Record of the Historic Environment, 199157 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<1> Royal Air Force, 11-APR-47, RAF/CPE/UK/1975 FP 1051-2 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17030.

Record last edited

Dec 1 2021 4:10PM