Monument record MDO2595 - Prehistoric field system, Buckland Down, Sydling St Nicholas

Linear banked earthworks and lynchets associated with a prehistoric settlement and field system of probable Iron Age/Romano-British date are visible on aerial photographs on Buckland Down, Sydling St Nicholas. The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project.

Earthworks along the 700 ft contour on Buckland Down consists of banks forming parts of enclosures or fields of the usual 'Celtic' type, with a well-defined hollow-way running through them from E to W. Some of the banks are up to 15 feet wide by 1 foot high. An elliptical platform near the SE end of the site may represent a dwelling. Earthworks on Hog Hill may be part of the same field-system. They consist of three lengths of isolated banks, one on the parish boundary and the others between the 600ft and 700ft contours. The two latter have remains of ditches. <2> ST 640012 'Celtic' fields and a settlement on Buckland Hill run southwards to Hog Hill which has fragmentary 'Celtic' field banks and a 260 ft long section of roughly N-S bank with a ditch on the east side situated at ST 644006. The settlement on Buckland Hill is a group of circular hollows set out on an E-W axis. The fields appear to be irregular in size and cover 12 acres of the summit. The spur sides appear to have been too steep to cultivate. <5> Centred ST 641011 The 'Celtic' field system remains visible partly under scrub, over about 6 hectares along the summit and between the 600 and 700 ft contour of the SW facing slope of Buckland Hill. Irregular-shaped fields, bounded by earthen banks up to 0.5m high and lynchets up to 1.0m high, vary in size between 100.0m by 40.0m (.4 ha) and 50.0m by 30.0m (.15 ha). The hollow-way is a well-defined bivallate field way, 2.5m wide, with banks 0.5m high; it extends for about 400.0m E-W down the spur slope. ST 64190095. An elliptical platform formed by cutting back into the very steep hillside measures 12.0m N-S by 9.0m E-W. Upcast is thrown around the lip edge and it exhibits no evidence of habitation. Much of this former down-land, especially that extending south-eastwards to Hog Hill, has been cultivated since 1947. The group of circular hollows in the settlement area centred ST 63920118 on Buckland Hill can no longer be identified, likewise the fragmentary 'Celtic' field banks which formerly extended over Hog Hill. ST 64320061. A NE-SW 54.0m length of bank, 5.0m wide and 0.3m high, with a ditch 4.0m wide and 0.3m deep on its E side. Its SW terminal rests on the steep edge of a combe. Soil marks suggests that this feature, probably a major field division, extended at least 70.0m northwards. Similar lengths of bank formerly at ST 64580090 and ST 64590043 (depicted on OS 25" 1901) have now been completely ploughed out. ST 63970132 to ST 64150132. Two contour following strip lynchets of probable Romano-British date extend E-W for 180.0m along the lower, N facing, spur slope of Buckland Hill. The lynchets, clearly defined on Aps (b) are up to 1.2m high with terraces of average 4.0m and 20.0m width, the latter being on the higher level and forming a strip field of about 0.36 hectares. This field is bounded at the N end by a flint and earth bank, 4.0m wide and 0.5m high, which extends at right angles to the lynchets. Ditch detail revised at 1:2500 on PFD. See illustration card for survey and photographs of 1955. <6> Linear banked earthworks and lynchets associated with a prehistoric settlement and field system of probable Iron Age/Romano-British date are visible as earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs on Buckland Hill and Buckland Down, Sydling St Nicholas <7-9>. The earthworks form a series of irregular rectilinear enclosures, two of which are particularly substantial - the larger up to 167m long by 114m deep and the smaller up to 80m long by 44m wide, its eastern end truncated by a later field boundary. These enclosures are recorded as the site of a 'British Settlement' on the OS 1st Edition map <1>. Double banked trackways/hollow ways on an E-W axis between the enclosures are also visible on aerial photographs, as are a series of parallel linear lynchets on the southwest side of Buckland Down - these last are possibly contemporary although a later, perhaps medieval, origin for these is also possible <7-9>. The field system may be associated with a further area of earthworks (MDO2596) on Hog Hill to the south. The features are still visible on Google Earth imagery and were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project

Record last edited

Nov 25 2022 12:24PM