Monument record MDO20846 - Prehistoric field system, Fordington Down, Bradford Peverell

An extensive prehistoric field system, visible as low earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs.

(Centred at: SY 66009100) Field systems: Taken from air photograph in January-March 1949. <1> See air photographs CPE/UK/2431/3134-6, 4260-4263. (See SY 69 SE 39 for possible associated settlement). The best preserved portions of this field system is in the southern half of field centred SY 66479096. Here are small rectilinear fields formed by lynchets and field banks, and on the brow of the hill lynchets up to 5.0 metres high form a zig-zag pattern; visible on air photographs. In the northern half of this field, lynchets have been spread and lowered byploughing. Field centred SY 65889087: well preserved lynchets and field banks forming rectilinear enclosures. Average height 1.4 metres. Under the plough. Field centred SY 65719055: Pronounced lynchets in pasture up to 1.3 metres high. Field centred SY 66159064: scattered Iron Age type lynchets spread by ploughing. Average height 0.5 metres. Partly under grass and partly crops. At SY 65409058; An angular lynchet 1.8 metres high. At SY 65509061. The field is under crops. Cropmarks of an Iron Age field system were noted here and in the adjacent long rectangular enclosure. Vague traces of a field system under grass were noted in fields centred SY 65589114, SY 66509132 and SY 66509153. Fields centred SY 66259165, SY 65939137, SY 66109120 and SY 65489085 were under crops and were not investigated. No trace was found in grass covered fields centred SY 66359140, SY 66609143, SY 66629158, SY 66359028 and SY 66509022. <2> Group (2) Bradford Peverell and Winterborne Monkton (SY 662917-667917). Traces of 'Celtic' fields, mutilated by a system of strip fields and modern ploughing, cover some 300 acres on Fordington Down but formerly extended in all directions. Two Romano-British settlements at 667907 and 666910, now destroyed, lay within the fields (Dorset Procs., LXXVIII (1956), 80-1). Most of the fields are N. of the Roman road W. from Dorchester which appears, together with the Roman aqueduct at the S.W. of Fordington Bottom, to have cut across 'Celtic' fields. Only a few scarps survive S. of the road in Winterborne St. Martin. (RAF V.A.P. CPE/UK/1934: 5087-9 and 2088). <3> Little remains of the formerly extensive field system. There are some 33 ha. Of ploughed down lynchets centred at SY 66529100 with further scant remains of lynchets at SY 65889087. <4> An Iron Age and / or Roman field system is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs taken in 2004. The site is roughly centred at SY 6553 9099 and comprises a group of conjoined and roughly square fields, the boundaries of which are defined by linear banks which have been ploughed level and are visible as soilmarks. The soilmarks extend over an area that measures circa 450m long by 250m wide although the field system may be significantly larger. NMR SY 6590/36 (NMR 23705/22) 01-SEP-2004 An extensive prehistoric field system, visible as low earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs. The field lynchets are showing as low earthworks on early photographs however much is now destroyed by ploughing. <5-10>

Record last edited

Nov 10 2023 4:01PM