Monument record MDO86 - Prehistoric field system at Barnes's Lane, Alton Pancras

An area, centred at ST 677014, mostly under pasture, which has traces of field banks and lynchets of Iron
Age/Romano-British type, considerably ploughed down and spread. <1>

Traces of Celtic fields remain as described by authority 1, the banks averaging 0.3m high. The site is currently under pasture. <3>

<1> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 04-FEB-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<1.1> Royal Air Force, 11-APR-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1974 2374-5 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18833.

<3> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 326-327 (Monograph). SDO136.

‘GROUP (39): BARNES’S LANE (Alton Pancras, Buckland Newton and Cerne Abbas (Dorset I)). The group consists of some 180 acres of much broken 'Celtic' field remains in the N.W. of Alton Pancras and S.W. of Buckland Newton parishes, extending from about ST 680027, S. of Holcombe Wood, to Ridge Hill, 680050. A few traces continue W. into Nether Cerne. There are two possible settlements, (a) and (b).

The fields lie between 575 ft. and 800 ft. O.D. on the E. side of the N.–S. Chalk ridge and on the spurs and in the bottoms E. of it. Even the best-preserved area, about 60 acres, S. of Barnes's Lane (see plan), had been considerably disturbed by chalk pits, by strip lynchets and by ploughing of uncertain date. Lynchets here were up to 6 ft. high and fields sloped up to 24°. Elsewhere, the remains were much broken, though individual lynchets were occasionally prominent. Strip lynchets impinge on 'Celtic' fields on the lower slopes of Ridge Hill, 681049.

At the extreme S.W., 200 yds. S. of Holcombe Wood, at 67700275, inside Cerne Abbas parish, is a hitherto unrecorded enclosure, (a), just apparent on air photographs (CPE/UK 1975: 1044–5). It lies in arable land on the E. brow of the ridge at 800 ft. O.D., its flattened bank, about 20 ft. across, enclosing a rough semicircle about 70 ft. by 50 ft. (possibly comparable with (a) in Group (38), 1 mile S.S.E.). At least one lynchet appears to join it on the E. In Buckland Newton parish, at 68580403, in arable land N. of Ford Down Lane, traces of irregular close-set terraces (b), up to 130 yds. long, may mark the site of a settlement. Romano-British tiles and coarse pottery have been found scattered on the 'Celtic' fields just S. of Barnes's Lane where, at 68370376, a schist hone was also found (Dorset Procs., 76 (1954), 76, 98–9.)

Lynchets formerly crossed the line of Barnes's Lane and there is no sign of a contemporary route to correspond with the 'Great Ridgeway' (cf. Timperley and Brill, Ancient Trackways of Wessex (1965), 20).
Air photographs: CPE/UK 1974:4370–2; 1975:1043–5; 2431: 3354–7).’

<3> Barrett, G, Various, Field Investigators Comments GB, F2 GB 06-JUL-77 (Unpublished document). SDO17369.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 199036 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 7 2024 4:08PM