Monument record MDO5179 - Strip lynchets south of Lines Dean Bottom, Turnworth

A medieval field system in the form of contour strip lynchets in blocks up to 250 yards long; visible as slight earthworks, reduced by ploughing. The remains of the open field system of the village. In this part of the parish fields had been enclosed piecemeal, before final enclosure took place in 1805. Areas of ridged cultivation and several associated banked linear earthworks are visible on 1940s aerial photographs and current Environment Agency lidar imagery and were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

'… to the S. of Lines Dean Bottom (around 816074) 30 acres of ridge-and-furrow, 7 yds. wide, are arranged in five butting furlongs, a typical open field lay-out. The last mentioned has been reploughed into three-yard narrow-rig by splitting each original ridge into two, probably in the 18th or 19th century.' (1)

An irregular and abutting arrangement of ridged cultivation marks, relatively narrow in form and possibly post medieval ridge and furrow but some could be the remains of medieval ridge and furrow, is visible as earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs (RAF 1947). The features portion up part of a larger historic field to the south of Lines Dean Bottom and in places correspond with banked linear earthworks visible on current Environment Agency lidar imagery that might be associated field boundaries/lynchets of contemporary date (EA 2018). They were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project. The cultivation ridges are no longer visible on current Google Earth or lidar imagery.

Royal Air Force, 11-APR-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1975 FS 2025 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21621.

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

<1> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 291 (Monograph). SDO136.

Record last edited

Jan 6 2026 10:47AM