Monument record MWX584 - Prehistoric field system on Rings Hill, Tyneham

The remains of an Iron Age/Romano-British field system. A group of dispersed linear and rectilinear banks and ditches are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs and Lidar imagery of Rings Hill. They are considered likely to be the remains of some of this late prehistoric field system.

Very disturbed Celtic Fields appear on about 100 acres of north slope between Rings Hill and Povington Hill with isolated and slight scarps occurring on the corresponding south slope. The fields are of two types and in two blocks. (i). Flowers Barrow. 30 acres of squarish, small fields, some irregular, marked by lynchets between about 4-10ft high and arranged along base-lines which mostly follow the contour. The fields also extended north and east to well below the natural shoulder of the ridge. (ii) Whiteway and Povington Hills. Fields over 20 acres are arranged in regular manner with parallel base lines 20-40 yards apart, up and down the slope. These are marked by slight banks or lynchets about 1ft high in places running unbroken for at least 170 yards. Apart from some very slight cross-divisions, there are some high lynchets; these may belong partly to earlier fields. Since there are indications that this regular pattern has been imposed on fields of the type seen in block (i). Traces of irregular fields are more clear further east on Povington Hill, extending over 25 acres, of the regular, banked type inserted among them. (see plan with SY 88 SE 21 for part of this field system). <1> Field investigation in 1981 showed the fields to be barely visible around Flowers Barrow, and scant traces surviving on Whiteway and Povington Hills. <2>. A group of dispersed linear and rectilinear banks and ditches are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs (3-6) and Lidar imagery (7-8) of Rings Hill. They are considered likely to be the remains of some of the late prehistoric field system described above. These features were digitally plotted during the South West Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey (Dorset). The north-eastern end of the field system is visible on aerial photographs (9-13) and was digtially plotted during the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project.

Record last edited

Oct 21 2023 7:27AM