Monument record MDO5113 - Prehistoric field system

Linear banked and ditched features to the southeast of Blandford Camp are visible as cropmarks and earthworks on aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery. The features may comprise field boundaries and trackways assocaited with a later prehistoric field system, potetnially of Iron Age or Roman date. The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM project.

'Celtic' fields, now largely flattened by ploughing and discontinuous, are centred at ST 95065, associated with the
settlement (ST 90 NW 56) and a number of dykes, 'Celtic' field lynchets, but few complete fields, extend E from Buzbury Rings
(ST 90 NW 13) towards Tarrant Rushton, along the steep slope N of Keyneston Down, as far as ST 933060. Air photographs show traces of former 'Celtic' fields on Rawston Down, especially around ST 924067. Farther N, in Tarrant Monkton, traces are visible on Luton Down, around ST 915071, and also over an extensive area around, but mostly N of Luton Drove, between ST 921074 and ST 936076. <1-5>

Linear banked and ditched features to the southeast of Blandford Camp are visible as cropmarks and earthworks on aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery <6,7>. The features may comprise field boundaries and trackways associated with a later prehistoric field system, potentially of Iron Age or Roman date. A possible rectilinear and/or sub-circular enclosure is visible in the southeast area of the group, although there has been later military activity in this area which has obscured some of the features.

The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM project.

<1> Royal Air Force, 12-DEC-1946, RAF/CPE/UK/1893 3067-9 (Aerial Photograph). SDO19225.

<2> Royal Air Force, 17-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1934 3155-8 (Aerial Photograph). SDO19226.

<3> Royal Air Force, 22-JAN-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 4319-21 (Aerial Photograph). SDO19224.

<4> Royal Air Force, 20-APR-1953, RAF/F22 58/1090 87-88 (Aerial Photograph). SDO19227.

<5> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1972, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume IV (North), 118-119 (Monograph). SDO99.

<6> John Boyden, 07-FEB-1971, JRB 371/4581 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18901.

<7> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209375 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jan 23 2023 8:29PM