Monument record MDO2890 - Mount Pleasant, West Stafford

A large Neolithic henge enclosure visible as slight earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs. This monument, which was partly excavated by Wainwright in 1970-71, comprises a ditch and outer bank around an irregular oval area, with four entrances. Principal features of the interior are a palisade trench on the inner side of the ditch and a structure comprising five concentric circles of post holes within a ditch.

A Neolithic henge monument is visible as earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs, situated on a low ridge running east-west between the valley of the Frome to the north and the South Winterbourne to the south. {1}. Excavations undertaken there by Geoffrey Wainwright in 1970-71 demonstrated that the surviving earthworks were the eroded remnant of an enormous earthen enclosure comprising a massive bank with internal berm and ditch, the total dimensions being 370m east-west by 340m north-south. Geophysical survey suggested 4 entrances in total, located to the west, north, east and south-east. The geophysical survey also revealed a massive and continuous palisade running within and concentric to the henge ditch. Enclosing an area measuring circa 270m east-west by 245m north-south, the palisade trench would have supported a wall of timbers perhaps 6 metres high, yet only two extremely narrow entrances could be found through this enormous timber barrier. Within the enclosure’s interior, excavation revealed the site of a complex timber and sarsen structure surrounded by a ditch 43m in diameter. Known as Site IV, the ditch enclosed five broadly concentric rings of post holes, plus a series of larger pits representing a sarsen ‘cove’ plus outliers. Radiocarbon dates obtained from excavated samples of the henge provide a broad outline chronology that places the main earthwork enclosure within the early-to-mid 3rd millennium BC (2878-2470 cal BC). Site IV appears to begin life in the later centuries of the 3rd millennium BC while the palisade was constructed around 2000 BC. Finds and features point to continuing, if intermittent, activity including a Bronze Age barrow, known as Conquer Barrow (MDO2888), which was constructed on top of the bank on the western side of the henge, as well as an Iron Age round house (MDO20949) and a Romano-British rectilinear enclosure (MDO20948), both of which partly overly Site IV. Two Saxon burials were also uncovered here, both extended inhumations. One was found by the western entrance of the enclosure, the other within a ditch. {2}

Record last edited

Dec 1 2023 2:29PM