Monument record MDO43344 - Iron Age / Romano-British Celtic field system, Ibberton and Woolland

Iron Age / Romano-British Celtic field system overlain in parts by Medieval or later fields and lynchets. A concentration of medieval strip lynchets to the east of Ibberton are visible as banked earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery. To the northeast some of the banked features might be field boundaries of earlier, possibly later prehistoric origin. The features were digitally recorded during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Area centred ST 791075. The strong lynchets of Iron Age/Romano-British type in the Chitcombe Down - Ibberton Hill area have been utilized to some extent in later times. The area between the lynchets has been ploughed and many lynchets have been used to form the basis of modern field boundaries.

Medieval or later cultivation remains lie on the steep scarp immediately north east of Ibberton church where a group of eight contour strip lynchets covers about 22 acres (ST 791077). Originally the strips were up to 400 yds long with risers up to 18ft. high, but extensive alterations were made to the group before 1840, as a result of enclosure. Two of the fields are laid out across the risers of the original strips, and subsequent ploughing in these fields has produced secondary risers cutting obliquely across the older treads. Some 500 yds south east of the church, also on the scarp slope, further contour strip lynchets overlie 'Celtic' fields (see below). <1>

i) Strip lynchets apparently lie over 'Celtic' fields on Ibberton Hill at ST 791072.

ii) A block of eight Medieval or later contour strip lynchets with risers up to 20ft cover some 15 acres of the steep north-west face of the scarp immediately east of Chitcombe Farm, at ST 787069. These and two other strip lynchets in Launch Wood (ST 777066) may be part of the open fields of Chitcombe (see ST 70 NE 27 for settlement remains). <<2>

A concentration of medieval strip lynchets to the east of Ibberton are visible as banked earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery (RAF 1945; RAF 1947; RAF 1947; EA 2018). To the northeast some of the banked features might be field boundaries of earlier, possibly later prehistoric origin. Many of the lynchets have been incorporated into the historic and present day field pattern as hedged field boundaries. The features were digitally recorded during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Royal Air Force, 11-APR-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1974 FP 1176 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21686.

Royal Air Force, 17-Jan-1947, RAF/CPE/UK 1934 RS 4171 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21681.

Royal Air Force, 27-MAR-1945, RAF/106G/LA200 FS 2068 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21689.

Environment Agency, xx-xxx-2018, Environment Agency National Lidar Programme DTM 1M (Aerial Photograph). SDO21483.

<1> Quinnell, N V, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigator's Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 19-AUG-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<1.1> Royal Air Force, 1975, RAF CPE/UK/1975 4028, 1975 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17509.

<1.2> Royal Air Force, 22-JAN-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 4336-40, 22-JAN-1948 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17510.

<2> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 316 (Monograph). SDO136.

<3> Historic England, National Record of the Historic Environment, 201776 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 18 2026 3:15PM