Monument record MDO49811 - Neolithic cross dyke, Hambledon Hill, Child Okeford

A Neolithic linear earthwork or cross dyke on Hambledon Hill is visible as earthworks and soilmarks on aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery. The feature is recorded as two separate features, the 'western outwork' under MDO47592 and a 'relict spur' under MDO47594, but the available aerial sources suggest these might originally have been one feature. It was digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project. The feature falls within the Scheduling for two separate list entries for the causewayed enclosure and the hillfort.

A Neolithic linear earthwork or cross dyke on Hambledon Hill is visible as earthworks and soilmarks on aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery (RAF 1943; RAF 1954; EA 2018) . The feature is recorded as two separate features, the 'western outwork' under MDO47592 and a 'relict spur' under MDO47594, but the available aerial sources suggest these might originally have been one feature. The feature falls within the Scheduling for two separate list entries for the causewayed enclosure and the hillfort.

The feature as seen on available aerial sources comprises a double banked causewayed earthwork with an inner ditch. It extends for approximately 325m from south round to north north west along the western edge of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure (MDO3035) to the southwest corner of an outwork of Hambledon Hill Iron Age hillfort (MDO3713). From here it either continues westwards for approximately a further 275m, or abuts a more truncated earthwork with outer banks and an internal ditch that runs for approximately 275m alongside, or under the south side of the hillfort. This section has potentially been impacted by the hillfort construction, also possibly a later footpath, and it is not entirely clear if or how the two sections conjoin. The feature was digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Royal Air Force, 13-JAN-1943, RAF/HLA/651 FS 2153 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21575.

Royal Air Force, 19-AUG-1954, RAF/542/8 F22 62 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21566.

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

Record last edited

Dec 5 2025 9:18AM