Monument record MDO2597 - Bronze Age settlement on Shearplace Hill, Sydling St Nicholas

Middle and Late Bronze Age occupation consisting of enclosures, banks and ditches with finds of a comb, loom weights, whetstones and a few flint scrapers and animal bones. Iron Age and /Romano British fields and trackways present. 3rd and 4th century Roman reoccupation consisting of pottery, a coin and a brooch.

Village Settlement on Shearplace Hill, between the 600 ft and 700 ft contour has a nucleus consisting of an E-shaped arrangement of banks which may represent a two-roomed structure with a forecourt. It is approached by a hollow way from the west and there is a second way 35 yds to the north of the supposed structure, and there are various other banks representing fields or enclosures. In the field to the north of the site is a well defined hollow way. (Plan 1). <2> As described by Authy 2. Surrounding the settlement are pronounced 'Celtic' lynchets and field banks forming rectilinear fields at SY 637990. Fragmentary remains are also visible in the ploughed field at SY 641987. <3> Excavation of Shearplace Hill settlement in 1958 proved that it spanned at least three cultural phases of the Middle to Late Bronze Age period. The earthwork complex represent a probable, single farmstead comprising several enclosures formed by substantial banks, ditches and palisades. (Plan 2) The principal enclosure, which overlay the earliest phase feature:- inner ditch, contained two roughly circular house sites ('A' and 'B' on Plans 3 & 4). The site was abandoned in the Late Bronze Age although slight occupation belonging to the late Roman period, perhaps by a shepherd, was also discovered. A single post hole 3rd and 4th century sherds, a brooch and coin of Victorinus being the only evidence. A double-lynchet track and hollow way abutting the settlement on the west and north sides probably have associations with later Iron Age/Romano-British 'Celtic' fields in the vicinity. Finds from the excavations included pottery characteristic of the Deverel-Rimbury group and barrel-shaped 'Bucket Urn' types. A decorated bone weaving comb, clay roof and loom weights, whetstones, a few flint scrapers and animal bones were also recovered. In Dorchester Museum. Five samples of charcoal from the settlement area were submitted to the National Physical Laboratory for radiocarbon assay. One sample (NPL 19) was assessed at 3130 years before present (1st Jan 1950) with a standard deviation of 180 years (ie a range between 1360 to 1000 BC). <4-5> Avery and Close-Brooks reinterpreted the post-hole arrangement of Rahtz's (Authy 5) house site 'A' as having two phases - 'A1' and 'A2'. Their revised sequence of the site showed that the use of a double ring of upright roof-supports, hitherto recognised only in Iron Age houses, was a practice already current in the later Middle Bronze Age. Rahtz's house side 'B' was also probably multi-period but difficult to interpret. <7> The east side of the main enclosure (at SY 64029854) and the enclosures which fall south of the east-west farm trace on Shearplace Hill settlement, have been ploughed out. <8> Additional references. <9-11> The remains of the Shearplace Hill settlement is now confined to about 0.5 ha., centred at SY 64029856, with a long track and hollow way to the north, extending overall from SY 63999904 to SY 63969871 and SY 64039859 (see plan). The banks are up to 1.2m. High and the hollow way is in places up to 1.7m. Deep. In the field north of the settlement, at SY 641989, only amorphous, slight, mounds and hollows survive. The little that remains of the field system is ploughed and smoothed over. Revised at 1:2500 on MSD. <12> Additional material and correspondence. <13>

Record last edited

Jan 11 2024 11:00AM