Monument record MDO28046 - Rectangular Enclosure, Tarrant Rawston

A small rectangular enclosure identified from air photos, and adjacent to an Iron Age/Roman enclosed settlement. Ditched linear features associated with this enclosure are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs dated 1976. The features suggest a larger enclosure than indicated by the original record, or a group of interlinked rectilinear enclosures. A ditch recorded under Hob UID 209453 may be part of this grouping. The features were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM Project.

'(4) Settlement Site (932066), or Iron Age or Romano-British date, lies at 275 ft. above O.D. on the crest, and on the E. slope at the S.E. end of a broad flat-topped Chalk spur which projects towards the Tarrant. Air photographs (N.M.R., ST 9306/1-5) show the soil-marks of a roughly circular enclosure some 700 ft. in diameter, bounded by a narrow ditch with traces of an inner bank; about two-thirds of the circle remain. Approaching the enclosure from the S.W. and traceable for 170 yds. are two parallel ditches, 20 ft. apart, perhaps representing a track; they appear, however, to butt against the ditch and there is no indication of an entrance. Soil-marks inside the enclosure indicate short lengths of narrow ditch, a ditched circular feature about 60 ft. in diameter, and a roughly traingular enclosure of just under ½ acre, bounded on the W. by the main ditch and on the N. and E. by lesser ditches. Immediately W. of the main enclosure are traces of a smaller, subrectangular ditched enclosure, about 120 ft. across.' [1] Ditched linear features associated with the subrectangular enclosure are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs dated 1976. [2 and 3]. The features suggest a larger enclosure than indicated by the original record, or a group of two or three interlinked rectilinear enclosures approximatley 97m long by 68m wide overall. They were digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM Project. A ditch recorded under Hob UID 209453 may be part of this grouping.

Record last edited

Sep 7 2022 2:56PM