Monument record MDO3710 - Lynchets on Hambledon Hill, Child Okeford

Earthwork terraces overlying prehistoric field systems are strip lynchets of probable medieval date. The Hambledon Hill earthworks were surveyed by RCHME in 1996. Contour hugging lynchets overlying earlier field boundaries running both along and counter to the direction of slope are visible as earthworks on the southwest sides of Hambledon Hill on 1940s aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery and were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

Earthwork terraces overlying prehistoric field systems are strip lynchets of probable medieval date. The Hambledon Hill earthworks were surveyed by RCHME in 1996.

Contour hugging lynchets overlying earlier field boundaries running both along and counter to the direction of slope are visible as earthworks on the southwest sides of Hambledon Hill on 1940s aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery and were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project (RAF 1947; EA 2018). The lynchets are presumed to be of probable medieval date, with the underlying features of probable later prehistoric origin.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 82 (Monograph). SDO146.

Royal Air Force, 23-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1944 RP 3328 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21501.

Environment Agency, xx-xxx-2018, Environment Agency National Lidar Programme DTM 1M (Aerial Photograph). SDO21483.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 93 (Monograph). SDO146.

‘(12) CULTIVATION REMAINS. Nothing is known of the date of enclosure of the two former open field systems within the present parish. Traces of ridge-and-furrow, arranged in curving furlongs and corresponding neither with the existing nor with the Tithe Map field boundaries, can be seen on air photographs (R.A.F. CPE/UK 1974: 2179-84 and 3178-81); they lie S. of Lower Fifehead (774096). Ridge-and-furrow exists in old closes W. of the Manor House (765110); the ridges are 6 yds. to 8 yds. wide, with headlands 9 yds. wide.’

Record last edited

Dec 5 2025 1:46PM