SDO15239 - Wedgehill Farm, Horton, Dorset. Heritage Desk-Based Assessment

‘In May 2013 Cotswold Archaeology was commissioned by Orta Wedgehill Solar Ltd to carry out a Heritage Desk-Based Assessment relating to land at Wedgehill Farm, Horton, Dorset. The proposed development comprises a 26.94ha solar PV installation. No World Heritage Sites, sites included on the Tentative List of Future Nominations for World Heritage Sites (January 2012), Registered Parks and Gardens, Registered Battlefields or Conservation Areas are located within the study area. Six Scheduled Monuments and one Grade II Listed building are situated within the study area. No designated heritage assets lie within the site. The proposed development site has some limited potential for Palaeolithic remains to be present in the superficial deposits recorded within the site. The geological makeup of the site does not indicate any potential for in-situ Palaeolithic remains, rather the superficial deposits of the type recorded within the site are typically associated with re-deposited individual finds, to which the nature of the development poses a very low level of threat. The proposed development site lies within an area containing evidence for Late Neolithic/Bronze Age funerary practices, with a burial mounds recorded c. 30m to the north and east of the site and a series of others within the study area recorded both as earthworks and cropmarks. There is considered to be some potential for further remains of burials of this date within the site, although this is based solely on the topographic situation within the eastern part of the site and there are no other indications of the presence of such remains within the site. Therefore this potential is considered to be limited. A linear earthwork, the upstanding remains of which are Scheduled, lies in the area adjacent to the site. The earthwork is thought to represent the remains of a prehistoric boundary. The orientation of this earthwork indicates that any possible trajectory may pass through the southern part of the site, although there is no current evidence to indicate this. The potential for Iron Age, Roman and early medieval remains to be present within the site is considered to be limited. From the medieval period onward it appears likely that the site was characterised by woodland and heathland, and the potential for medieval, post-medieval and modern remains is considered to be limited. Gravel extraction, which extended to within the north-western part of the site, may have disturbed any potential earlier deposits in this area, and pylons crossing the site are also likely to be associated with localised areas of below ground disturbance. Cropmarks identified within the southern field of the site indicate the presence of below ground linear ditched and double-ditched features. It is possible that these features represent former, undated, trackways. The proposed development site does not form part of the key setting of any Scheduled monuments within the area, and would not have an impact amounting to substantial harm to the significance of any Scheduled monuments within the study area.’