Monument record MDO5133 - Iron Age and Romano-British settlement, Tarrant Rawston

Probable Iron Age or Romano-British enclosed settlement. A roughly circular enclosure with a single ditch and bank has been recognised on air photographs. A possible trackway approaches the enclosure from the south. Inside the enclosure are soil-marks of short lengths of narrow ditch, a ditched circular feature and a roughly triangular enclosure. The record for this monument has been enhanced with support from Wessex Water. Ditched features associated with this monument are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs dated 1976 and 1995. They were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM project.

Probable Iron Age or Romano-British enclosed settlement. A roughly circular enclosure with a single ditch and bank has been recognised on air photographs. A possible trackway approaches the enclosure from the south. Inside the enclosure are soil-marks of short lengths of narrow ditch, a ditched circular feature and a roughly triangular enclosure. <1>

Tarrant Rawston 4. Circular enclosure; polygon attatched 'D' shape. [Plans of comparable sites]. <2-3>

Ditched features associated with this monument are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs dated 1976 and 1995 <4-6>. The features appear to comprise part of a sub-circular enclosure approximately 217m across, accessed by a double ditched linear trackway from the south, approximately 455m long in its visible section. Internal features within the enclosure include several pits and part of a smaller curvilinear enclosure. Additional field boundaries and/or rectilinear enclosures are visible on the eastern edge and overlapping the circular enclosure. A further rectilinear enclosure on the west side is recorded separately under MDO28046. The settlement is located within an area of later prehistoric field system (MDO5144), possibly of earlier, Bronze Age to Iron Age, date. The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM project.

The record for this monument has been enhanced with support from Wessex Water.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1972, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume IV (North), 111 (Monograph). SDO99.

'(4) SETTLEMENT SITE (932066), or Iron Age or Romano-British date, lies at 275 ft. above O.D. on the crest, and on the E. slope at the S.E. end of a broad flat-topped Chalk spur which projects towards the Tarrant. Air photographs (N.M.R., ST 9306/1-5) show the soil-marks of a roughly circular enclosure some 700 ft. in diameter, bounded by a narrow ditch with traces of an inner bank; about two-thirds of the circle remain. Approaching the enclosure from the S.W. and traceable for 170 yds. are two parallel ditches, 20 ft. apart, perhaps representing a track; they appear, however, to butt against the ditch and there is no indication of an entrance. Soil-marks inside the enclosure indicate short lengths of narrow ditch, a ditched circular feature about 60 ft. in diameter, and a roughly traingular enclosure of just under ½ acre, bounded on the W. by the main ditch and on the N. and E. by lesser ditches. Immediately W. of the main enclosure are traces of a smaller, subrectangular ditched enclosure, about 120 ft. across.'

<2> Bowen, H C, 1990, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke (Monograph). SWX800.

<3> Bowen, H C, 1991, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke: Inventory (Monograph). SDO14864.

<4> John Boyden, 08-JUL-1976, JRB 3304/7 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18058.

<5> National Monuments Record, 04-SEP-1995, NMR 15397/26 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18059.

<6> National Monuments Record, 04-SEP-1995, NMR 15397/23 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18475.

<7> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/097 RCHME Inventory: Dorset IV (North) (Unpublished document). SDO17498.

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209408 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jan 10 2023 4:24PM