Monument record MDO41430 - Possible medieval field system, Henbury Farm, Sturminster Marshall

Ditched and banked linear features to the northwest of Henbury Farm, Sturminster Marshall, are visible on aerial photographs and current Lidar imagery. The features are considered to be historic field boundaries, possibly medieval in origin and potentially forming part of a coherent medieval field system, possibly incorporating medieval strip fields. They were digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project.

Ditched and banked linear features to the northwest of Henbury Farm, Sturminster Marshall, are visible on aerial photographs and current Lidar imagery (1-3). The features comprise a series of narrow curvilinear ditches situated in the southwest area of what appears to have originally been a large irregular enclosure with curvilinear boundaries, potentially of medieval origin and subsequently sub-divided during the post medieval period (4). The form of this large irregular enclosure (as recorded on the OS 1st Edition map) suggests it may have been an area of former medieval open field extending north from Henbury Farm (4). By the late 19th Century this was cut through by the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway (4). The ditched linear features are visible as earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs, with additional conforming curvilinear banks visible on current Lidar imagery (1 and 3). Further ditched linear features are visible as cropmarks on a 1979 aerial photograph (2). The features extend northwards below the railway cutting and are considered to be historic field boundaries, possibly medieval in origin and potentially forming part of a coherent medieval field system, possibly incorporating medieval strip fields.. The site is still fields on Google Earth imagery and the features are still visiblein places. They were digitally plotted from the given sources by the Dorset Stour NMP project.

Record last edited

Aug 22 2018 1:00PM