Monument record MDO2818 - Field system on East Hill, Up Cerne

Linear banked features are visible as earthworks on 1940's aerial photographs on East Hill, Up Cerne. The features are considered to be field boundaries associated with an enclosed Iron Age field system. They were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project.

Linear banked features are visible as earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs on East Hill, Up Cerne <1< <2>. The features are considered to be field boundaries associated with an enclosed Iron Age field system. They were digitally plotted during the Dorset Upper Frome AIM project.

The features are under trees and no longer visible on current Google Earth imagery.

'A' centred: ST 65250405. An area of rough pasture on the west side of East Hill exhibits faint traces of field banks and lynchets which seem to form small rectilinear fields of IA/RB type. This system is best seen when viewed from Wether Hill on the opposite side of the valley.

'B' centred: ST 66010284. A field with fairly pronounced lynchets which is probably an extension of area 'A'. <3>

'Celtic' fields at ST 643004(?) surround the head of the coombe in which Up Cerne is situated. They survive only on the steep coombe side between the 650ft and 800ft contours, extending from Cerne Wood (ST 645006) through East Hill as far as High Cank (ST 657032), about 1 1/2 miles. The area is wooded or overgrown but the fields are often well preserved and are 70 yds square. <4>

East Hill is densely overgrown with scrub and the scattered lynchets are difficult to see and define but it is not a large or impressive system. The lynchets in area 'B', north of the "Manor House", have been destroyed by ploughing. <5>

<1> Royal Air Force, 11-APR-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1975 1048-9 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17361.

<2> Royal Air Force, 11-APR-47, RAF/CPE/UK/1975 FP 1050-1 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17031.

<3> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, 19-SEP-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<4> Stone, J W, Field Investigators Comments JWS, F2 28-SEP-1976 (Unpublished document). SDO11902.

<4> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, RCHM Ms File (unpublished revision of Dorset 1) (Unpublished document). SDO17382.

<5> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, 28-10-78 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<6> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/088 RCHME Inventory: Dorset I (West) and Revision (Unpublished document). SDO17367.

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 198865 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Dec 1 2021 5:00PM