Monument record MDO48053 - Medieval deer park, Up Sydling, Sydling St Nicholas

It has been suggested that there may have been a deer park in this area because field names listed in the tithe apportionment contain 'park' elements. Site visits have not found evidence to support this suggestion, and it is considered unlikely.

Wilson, J D, 1973, The medieval deer-parks of Dorset XII; Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 69 (Article in serial). SDO14059.

‘UP SYDLING (P33). With the closure of the rifle range, the search for traces of a deer-park here is less hazardous than formerly, but no more rewarding. Field names alone led to its inclusion in the list of possible park sites: these lie immediately north of the road which runs eastward from Cerne Abbas to Sydling St. Nicholas. This road crosses the high ridge of chalk along which runs the ancient trackway called the Furzey Down Road, which is here the line of the parish boundary between Cerne and Sydling. Immediately west of the ridge top the road from Cerne plunges steeply downhill and passes a copse on its northern side. This copse is called “New Park” on the Tithe Roll. In the valley bottom, on the eastern bank of the Sydling Water and close to the former rifle range, are two fields jointly named “Part of Old Park”. These names were promising, but nothing can be found on the ground to support the suggestion that there was an embanked park here. The road itself, an ancient route, turnpiked in about 1780, may have obliterated any bank that ran on the southern side of our area – on the steepest part of the slope it is deeply cut into the chalk.
Northwards along the ridge top from the road no trace of embankment can be seen: this area has been intensively cultivated in recent years. The two spurs thrusting westwards into the Sydling valley, Hog Hill and Buckland Down, show no sign of embankment; it is Buckland Down, the northernmost of the two, which would seem likeliest as the northern extremity of a park here.
The RCHM West Dorset Inventory lists three groups of earthworks in the vicinity. In the valley bottom “a series of low banks and scarps forming irregular fields or enclosures with hollow-ways” occupy much of the area of the “Old Park” fields. Earthworks on Buckland Down and Hog Hill are described as Celtic field banks with a hollow-way and a possible dwelling site. These earthworks need not be taken as ruling out the possibility of a medieval park in this area, but the balance of probability seems unfavourable.’

Record last edited

Jul 5 2024 11:03AM