Monument record MWX3007 - Strip lynchets, Whitecliff Farm, Swanage

<1> Papworth, M, 1992, Whitecliff Farm, Purbeck, Dorset, Wessex Region, 112,450 (Unpublished document). SWX1387.

A series of earthwork terraces are visible at SZ0298082 and SZ02888073. They may be building terraces associated with a shrunken medieval settlement around Whitecliff farm and/or strip lynchets, remnants of common arable lands which preceded the present agricultural enclosures. Hutchins (1861 p 675) describes earthworks here which appear to confirm this interpretation. “On the south side of the north hill near Whitecliff, is an earthwork consisting of several parallel trenches, the earth thrown up in ridges; these are terminated by others of the same kind, which are at right angles with the former, and the whole looks like the border of some enclosure. It may have been designed for some ornament in former ages, being near the mansion house at Whitecliff. There is another work of this kind in the declivity of the hill near Godlingston”. The earthworks near Godlingston are probably those east of Knitson which are a good example of common agricultural strip farming. RCHM (1970 p297) records three damaged contour strip lynchets around SZ029808 one with a riser up to 4m high.

Record last edited

Nov 26 2024 12:08PM