Scheduled Monument: Two sections of Roman road on Corfe Hills and Barrow Hill (DO650)

The monument includes two separate sections of Roman road, 500m apart, on Barrow Hill and Corfe Hills, part of the road from Poole Harbour (Hamworthy) to Badbury Rings. In the post Roman period the parish boundary between the Borough of Poole and the parish of Corfe Mullen followed the line of the road on its western side. For the majority of its course within this scheduling the Roman road survives as a raised agger (embanked road), 8m wide and rising to a maximum height of 0.5m above the surrounding ground level, flanked by `V'-profiled drainage ditches on each side 2m wide, clearly visible in places as a depression up to 0.6m deep. In other places over the years the ditches have silted up and the western ditch has been covered by a trackway, but they will survive as buried features. In parts of the northern section, on Barrow Hill, there is a bank on the eastern edge of the ditch, up to 2m wide and 0.4m high. The northern section survives as an earthwork where it crosses a ridge of high ground disappearing at both ends as it descends into valleys. The road has been truncated by trackways and fences in several places and the southern end has been disturbed by quarrying. In the southern section, on Corfe Hills, while the agger is well preserved, the flanking ditches are not clearly visible but will survive as buried features. The earthwork of this section disappears at its northern end, where it descends into a valley and at its southern end it has been destroyed by the construction of housing and roads. The parish boundary is marked by a bank and adjacent track running parallel to the Roman road on its western side. These features are not included in the scheduling. All fence posts, the surfaces of tracks and paths, the telegraph pole and a man hole are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath these features is included.

Record last edited

Jan 14 2019 10:04AM