Monument record MDO49523 - Medieval strip field, ridge and furrow, Child Okeford

Areas of ridge and furrow cultivation, alongside several ditched and banked field boundaries, all probably part of an area of a medieval strip field system, are visible as earthworks to the west of Child Okeford on 1940s aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery. The features cover an area of around 40 hectares and were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Areas of ridge and furrow cultivation, alongside several ditched and banked field boundaries, all probably part of an area of a medieval strip field system, are visible as earthworks to the west of Child Okeford on 1940s aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery (RAF 1947; RAF 1947; EA 2018). Several of the field boundaries are formed of broader banks, some of which correspond with historic boundaries on the OS Epoch 1 map, others do not. These might be earlier boundaries, either later prehistoric or earlier medieval, which became incorporated into the medieval field system. There appears to have been some loss of features since the 1940s; not all are visible on current lidar imagery. Some of the fields are shown as having been planted with orchards on historic maps and some of the ridge and furrow cultivation in these former medieval strips might alternatively be post medieval orchard cultivation ridges.

The features cover an area of around 40 hectares and were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Royal Air Force, 16-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1924 RS 4327 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21499.

Royal Air Force, 23-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1944 RP 3332 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21500.

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

Record last edited

Nov 26 2025 9:03AM