Monument record MDO4679 - Cross dyke on Shillingstone Hill, Shillingstone

A cross dyke across a narrow spur and apparently associated with an adjacent prehistoric field system. In 1970 this monument was described as a bank around 3 feet high and 25 feet across, with a ditch on its uphill side. The feature is visible as a ditched and banked earthwork on 1940s aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

A later prehistoric cross dyke on Shillingstone Hill is visible as a ditched and banked earthwork on 1940s aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery (RAF 1947; EA 2018). The feature comprises several broken section of linear bank flanked in places by a single ditch. It merges with, and is potentially truncated by, banked linears associated with a later prehistoric field system, suggesting it might be the earlier feature, and is also truncated by later trackways. It was digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Royal Air Force, 17-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1934 RS 4167 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21622.

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

<1> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 242 (Monograph). SDO136.

'(26) CROSS_DYKE (82700990 - 82790985), extending from N.W. to S.E., lies at just over 600 ft. above O.D., across the narrow, steeply sloping spine of a spur which juts N.E. from Shillingstone Hill. The dyke is concave to the slope, with the ditch on the S.W. or uphill side. Its length is not less than 50 yds. And it may have been as much as 100 yds.; the bank is at most 3 ft. high and 25 ft. across; the ditch has similar dimensions. The dyke is apparently integral with the pattern of adjacent 'Celtic' fields (Group(58)), although at the N.W. end it cuts into a 'Celtic' field lynchet and the bank possibly lies along the top of another lynchet. It may be the slight remains of the lynchet, rather than an almost flattened continuation of the bank, that runs from the apparent 'Celtic' field lynchet, thus giving the monument its length of 100 yds. It has been cut by tracks along the spur top.
'Celtic' fields see p.340, Group (58).'

<2> Historic England, National Record of the Historic Environment, 205599 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jan 9 2026 10:47AM