Monument record MDO3963 - Medieval field system, St Thomas's Hill, Hilton

Medieval field boundaries curve around the southern and southwest sides of St Thomas's Hill, they are generally contour lynchets but at the western end are cross contour strip field boundaries. The features cover an area of 27 hectares and are in places associated with ridge and furrow cultivation. They overlie the prehistoric field system described in MDO3964 and were digitally recorded from aerial photographs and lidar imagery during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

(Centred at ST 79300260) Medieval strip cultivation running into a Celtic field system. <1>

Centred at ST 79270252. The field system, medieval or earlier, cannot be traced in the area suggested, but S of the road, in the parkland, there are fragmentary EW. scarps which may be medieval strip lynchets. These are grass covered, but poorly defined. <2>

These strip lynchets are part of a large field system (see ST 70 SE 3). <3>

Medieval field boundaries curve around the southern and southwest sides of St Thomas's Hill, they are generally contour lynchets but at the western end are cross contour strip field boundaries. The features cover an area of 27 hectares and are in places associated with ridge and furrow cultivation. They overlie the prehistoric field system described in MDO3964 and were digitally recorded from aerial photographs and lidar imagery during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project. (EA 2023, GE 2009)

<1> RCHM Mss file (Unpublished document). SWX2467.

<2> Quinnell, N V, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigator's Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 27-AUG-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<3> Graty, D J, Field Investigators Comments DJG, R2 DJG 20-AUG-84 (Unpublished document). SDO17664.

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 113 (Monograph). SDO146.

‘(29) CULTIVATION REMAINS: (a) A three-field system existed at Hilton in the 14th century (H. L. Gray, English Field Systems, 1915, appx. II, 461) but the date of enclosure is unknown. Strip lynchets of these fields cover about 60 acres around the village. … On Thomas's Hill (793026) a series of narrow contour strip lynchets, in part cut by the Hilton-Milton Abbas road, curves E. round the spur and runs into and over 'Celtic' fields (see Group 52, p. 337).'

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 201877 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<6> Environment Agency, 15-DEC-2023, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO20691.

<7> Google Earth, 2006, Google Earth 2006 (Aerial Photograph). SDO14562.

Record last edited

Dec 12 2025 7:54PM