Monument record MDO7403 - Lynchets, Corfe Castle

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1, 100 (Monograph). SDO148.

‘(179) STRIP FIELDS, around Kingston (957796; map p. 99), stretch from Willwood and Lynch Farm in the N. to points some ½ mile S. of the village. Strip cultivation was at times clearly carried further S. still to intrude upon 'Celtic' fields E. of Westhill Farm (see Ancient Field Group 23). The Purbeck limestone, on which all the remains lie, is approximately flat S. of the village, but it falls in a prominent escarpment to the N. The strip fields cover about 130 acres but formerly extended much further. Though now under pasture, most are covered by relatively recent narrow rig.
In most places strips are bounded by low, narrow banks or baulks rarely more than 1 ft. high. They run up and down when on a slope, often at an angle of about 7°, and slight lynchets are formed on the secondary slopes. Thus there are no contour strip lynchets of normal form, and risers only reach a height of 3 ft. where the fields edge a steep gully with a hollow-way (a) deep-cut by long use along the bottom, ¼ mile E. of the old church of St. James. The wastage of land caused by deep contour risers was, it seems, deliberately avoided; this is illustrated by the fact that the furlongs, into which all the strips are grouped, are on the N. slope set end-to-end but elsewhere butt against each other at right angles. The only sizable risers on the N. slope flank the downhill edge of the furlongs.
The ends of strips, wherever traceable, run on to the nearest strip of an adjacent furlong or to a headland or to a slightly sunk terminal area. There are traces of slightly hollowed occupation tracks. Strips range in length, where complete, from some 250 yds. to 290 yds. and in width from 10 yds. to 30 yds. In the 'reversed-S' furlong ((b) below) they vary in width from 15 yds. to 30 yds., giving an area of from 4/5 acre to 1½ acres.
The fields cannot be precisely dated. The road from Langton Matravers to Kingston cuts across two furlongs of which (b) preserves the only reversed-S pattern. If this was an early form, most of the other strips have been straightened. The widespread narrow rig, not cut by the road, supports this view, which may be confirmed by the existence of a low bank (c) with a reversed-S curve in marked contrast to the near-by strips. The whole area had already been enclosed by 1844 (Tithe Map).
The divisions into large open fields cannot be reconstructed, nor is it clear where the Kingston-Blashenwell boundary lay. The deep hollow-way (a) bounding the fields on the E. also separates them from the land around Scoles Farm (Monument 126), which is mediaeval in origin. No significant earthworks are connected with the fields or village. One or two badly mutilated earth platforms, extending N.E. from the present village, have been broken up by the quarrying which also caused an apparent modification in the furlong arrangement immediately N. of (b). An almost square enclosure of about ¼ acre defined by an unbroken slight bank with external ditch, which lies over part of a strip, formerly surrounded a small tree-clump shown as a 'plantation' on the Tithe Map (95847918). A ditched causeway 20 ft. wide runs from a point near Lynch Farm S.W. across strip fields, past the N.W. edge of The Plantation. It cuts through risers and is clearly later than the fields. (R.A.F. V.A.P. CPE/UK 1821: 5408–11.)’

<2> Papworth, M D J, Trust for Wessex Archaeology, 1983, Isle of Purbeck Survey, IOP 6, 651 (Index). SDO147.

'Strips ploughed down in fields occasionally ploughed in ley pasture. Earthworks faint but visible in places. Some fields in permanent pasture and earthworks clear here. 7/7/D. OS SY97NE 24. RAF/VAP//1946// 1821; 5408-11. British Gas AP//1979//Obl. AP 9163-7, 11, 16, 21, 22, 25, 9165-2, 3, 6, 9, 12. DCC/AP/ Area2// 1972//5585-212179, 212198.'

Record last edited

Aug 23 2024 11:22AM