Monument record MDO6072 - The Angle Ditch, Handley Down, Sixpenny Handley

Plan of the enclosure. <4>

The site was visited by MPPA (undated). In view of the apparent incomplete nature of the site, the limited understanding of the monument and the extensive degradation of the site by ploughing, it was not recommended for scheduling. Ground photo with archive report. <5>

A length of ditch of Middle Bronze Age date discovered and excavated in October 1893 by Pitt Rivers. The ditch runs for a total length of 68.6 metres, and includes a near right-angled turn. Prior to excavation, the site had not been visible as a surface feature. The ditch averaged 2 metres in depth. No trace of an accompanying bank was observed. Area excavations failed to identify any post-built structures associated with the ditch. However, this was also the case at nearby South Lodge, where Pitt-Rivers and his labourers largely failed to notice structures which only came to light during re-excavation in the late 1970s by Barrett and Bradley. It seems likely therefore that the Angle Ditch represents either a partially enclosed settlement, or a partially ditched enclosure (see, for example, the nearby Down Farm enclosure SU 01 SW 84). Like South Lodge, the ditch appears to run around the corner of an earlier field plot (integrated within field system SU 01 NW 71). Pitt Rivers' surface trenching recovered pottery and flint in variable quantities across the area examined, including some notable concentrations. The ditch also contained pottery, metalwork and other finds of Middle Bronze Age date. The upper fill of the ditch included some Roman pottery, and Roman sherds also occurred in a surface scatter in the vicinity. The Angle Ditch itself is also cut by a later ditch which also appears to form part of a larger irregular enclosure surrounding Wor Barrow (SU 01 NW 14) and a couple of round barrows (SU 01 NW 13 and 15). The purpose of this larger enclosure appears to have been to demarcate an unploughed area around Wor Barrow. <6>

<1> Pitt-Rivers, A H L F, 1898, Excavations in Cranborne Chase near Rushmore on the Borders of Dorset and Wilts 1893-96 Volume IV (Monograph). SDO16623.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 70 (Monograph). SDO129.

'(27) BRONZE AGE DITCH, known as the Angle Ditch and probably part of an occupation site, lies on the summit of Handley Down (01171730), some 200 ft. W. of Wor Barrow (29). Not visible as a surface feature, it was discovered by bosing and was excavated by General Pitt-Rivers. It lies in an area of 'Celtic' fields (Group (85), p. 118), now heavily ploughed, and appears to be integrated with their pattern. The ditch, 6½ ft. deep, 7½ ft. wide at the top and 1 ft. wide at the bottom, followed an irregular line for 165 ft. from S.W. to N.E., then turned at right-angles towards the S.E. and continued for a further 60 ft. Finds from the lower filling of the ditch indicate a date in the later Bronze Age; they include parts of a looped palstave and of a class-II razor; a bonze awl, a sandstone grain-rubber, a complete barrel urn and fragments of others, and a fragment of a globular urn. Possibly the ditch formed part of a roughly rectangular enclosure with broad gaps in its sides, like that on Martin Down, Hants., also excavated by Pitt-Rivers and found to be of comparable date (Excavations IV (1898), 185-214). That the Angle Ditch had already been obscured by ploughing in the Roman period is clear from the quantity of later pottery, especially Romano-British wares, found in its upper filling and as a surface scatter around it. Pitt-Rivers's excavation also revealed a shallow ditch, 3 ft. wide and 1½ ft. deep, which ran for over 450 ft. from N.N.W. to S.S.E. across the site and was apparently cut by the Angle Ditch. Its position and its apparent relationship with the 'Celtic' fields immedaitely to the W. suggest that it may have served to separate those fields from an uncultivated area sourrounding Wor Barrow, rather than as a drain, as suggested by Pitt-Rivers. Finds from the excavation are in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Farnham. (Pitt-Rivers, Excavations IV (1898), 58-61, 102-113; Dorset Procs., 46 (1925), 92-3; Arch. J., CXIX (1962), 54, 56).'

<3> Bowen, H C, 1990, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke, 51-2 (Monograph). SWX800.

<4> Barrett, J, Bradley, R and Green, M, 1991, Landscape, Monuments and Society: the prehistory of Cranborne Chase (Monograph). SDO16633.

<5> English Heritage, English Heritage Alternative Action Report (Scheduling record). SDO18279.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 213495 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 15 2023 7:27AM