Monument record MDO963 - Enclosure west of Wooden Cabbage Farm, Corscombe

A roughly oval enclosure of probable later prehistoric date.

ST 54140692. A sub-oval enclosure is situated in a pasture field on the crest of a small valley. The interior is level, with no indication of structures, and measures 38.0m N-S by 24.0m E-W and about 0.1 ha in area. It is surrounded by a bank, 8.0m wide, and 0.4m high externally; 0.1m internally. The E side is poorly defined and only 0.2m high. There is a possible original entrance 5.0m wide on the W side and a break, 4.0m wide on the E; possibly made by a track which formerly crossed the enclosure. An outer ditch, about 6.0m wide and a maximum of 0.1m deep, can be traced as a cropmark on the N, W and S sides. The function and date of the enclosure are not apparent. Surveyed at 1:2500 on permatrace. <1> A D-shaped/curvilinear enclosure situated on quite flat land, close to the edge of a steep fall to a stream near Wood Farm. West of the enclosure the land is flat; the stream with its gorge is to the east. At present the field in which the enclosure sits is under improved pasture but has been ploughed in the past. The farmer, Mr Clifford Dowding, commented that the earthwork used to be far more prominent before he ploughed it. The field including the enclosure is crossed by regularly-spaced, narrow ridges and furrows running east-west, confirming previous ploughing. The enclosure consists of a low, spread bank with an external ditch, surrounding an area of c. 0.09 ha and occupying c. 0.3 ha. The bank survives as an earthwork c. 6.5 - 9.5m wide averaging c. 0.50m high above the ditch bottom. The inner face is comparatively slight, achieving no more than c. 0.25m in height. On the east side the bank is badly denuded. The ditch survives only on the north and south; on the north it has been enhanced but pushed inwards by ploughing and is no more than 0.15m deep while on the south it has been used as a track and is more prominent, up to 0.25m deep. On the east and west sides the course of the ditch is marked only by boggy ground with lusher, greener grass. Land inside the enclosure is quite flat and appears slightly raised above land outside, perhaps due to erosion by ploughing of the latter. The interior is divided into two unequal parts by the passage of a slightly hollowed track cutting across the short axis and leading down towards the stream where large stones on the east bank indicate a probable ford. The track is shown as a bridleway on current OS maps and appears to cut through the south end of a probable original entrance midway along the west side. The two, spread, rounded bank terminals are separated by a gap of c. 5.5m and are slightly offset. Previous OS plan (Auth. 1) shows an incurving trend to the ditch opposite this gap, perhaps indicating a causeway was just visible then. At the south east corner a slight holloway, between 5 and 9 m wide, joins the enclusive ditch and runs along the ditch on the south side. It runs over the edge of the gorge to the south east and fades. Immediately north of it is a small area of slight scarping. South of the holloway is a prominent north-south scarp, probably though not certainly a natural feature: it forms a slight terrace in the hillside prior to the steeper fall of the gorge itself. The morphology of the enclosure would favour a later prehistoric origin. Surveyed at 1:1000. <2>

Record last edited

Mar 1 2022 11:33AM