Monument record MDO45144 - Banjo enclosure and circular enclosure, Sixpenny Handley

Banjo enclosure visible as cropmarks on air photographs. Irregularly shaped, the enclosure is circa 90 metres across at its greatest extent, and features an entrance on the southeast, the approach to it flanked by side ditches which extend for around 40 metres before curving away, one to the south and southeast, the other to the north and northwest. The latter follows a sinuous course before curving to accommodate a small roughly circular enclosure circa 30 metres in diameter. Both the main enclosure and the smaller enclosure feature pits visible as cropmarks.

ST 982168. The crop mark of a 'Banjo' enclosure is visible on air photographs of July 1970. It consists of an irregular shaped area, perhaps 90m across, defined by a ditch turning sharply outward on either side of an entrance to form a short 'approach lane'. The ditch swings away to left and right following an irregular curving course for a few hundred metres.

On one side the perimeter ditch seems to embrace another smaller enclosure. <1>

'Banjo' enclosure, are 0.6ha. AP suggests complex phases at NE, where also pits and smears outside 'banjo'; linear [ST 91 NE 74] apparently unconnected on W. <3-4>

<1> VARIOUS, Antiquity, Volume 46, 1972, page 225 (Serial). SDO17970.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 69, Sixpenny Handley 20 (Monograph). SDO129.

(20) Romano-British Occupation Site (98311708), noted in 1951 in the W. side of Humby's Stock Coppice, was indicated by coarse pottery, a bronze bracelet, and 11 coins ranging from Antoninus Pius to the late 4th century; copper slag was also found (Dorset Procs., 73 (1951), 104–5). An Enclosure (982168) linked with boundary ditches and a track is revealed by an air photograph (C.U.A.P., BCV 86) in the arable immediately W. and S. of the coppice (Plate 62). It is sub-rectangular, about 280 ft. by 240 ft., and it has an entrance on the S.E. Numerous storage pits, nearly all inside the enclosure except for a few on the W., suggest an Iron-Age origin. From the entrance a narrow passage flanked by side-ditches extends S.E. for about 120 ft. The ditches then curve away, one to S. and S.E., the other to N.E. and then N.W. The second ditch follows a sinuous course and at 98311686 curves to accommodate a small, roughly circular enclosure about 100 ft. across, possibly with storage-pits inside it. Beyond this the ditch forms one side of a track which leads N.W. This ditch appears to have replaced earlier alignments just outside the entrance passage.

<3> Bowen, H C, 1990, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke, 93, Sixpenny Handley 20 (Monograph). SWX800.

<4> Bowen, H C, 1991, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke: Inventory, 29, Sixpenny Handley 20 (Monograph). SDO14864.

<4.1> Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photography, CUCAP VAP RC8 BH7, RCH01/091 (Aerial Photograph). SDO19091.

Object Title: RCHME Inventory: Dorset V (East). Scope & Content: Annotated publication proofs for Dorset V, East Dorset, published in 1974. Also includes original surveys, drawings and field notes, and unpublished material. Original survey material has been catalogued.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209817 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Dec 20 2022 12:14PM