Monument record MDO44229 - Prehistoric trackway, Sixpenny Handley

A twin-ditched roadway approaches the settlement from the SE, with an oval earthwork called 'Church Barrow' (ST 91 NE 24.4) made upon it at one point. Its ditches open out as they reach the settlement site. The roadway, which was unmetalled, was found to be about 10ft wide, with side ditches 3ft wide and 2ft deep cut in the solid chalk. Beyond the ditches were slight outer banks. A similar twin-ditched roadway approaches the settlement from the N. <1> <3>

The southernmost 350m of the trackway is well-preserved, taking the form of a double lynchet track, each lynchet being about 0.4m high. To the N it turns sharply to the W and is now only visible as a single lynchet for 40.0m before it enters grassland where it has been destroyed by ploughing. Here it formerly joined a hollow-way approaching from the S, which has been ploughed out. Where the track emerges from the enclosed field 30.0m S of Church Barrow, it appears as a hollow with unsurveyable traces of side-ditches, and continues in this condition to a point 60.0m N of Church Barrow, where it becomes visible as a twin-ditched roadway. <4>

<1> Pitt Rivers, A H L F, 1887, Excavations in Cranborne Chase near Rushmore, on the borders of Dorset and Wilts. Vol. 1: excavations in the Romano-British village on Woodcuts Common, and Romano-British antiquities in Rushmore Park, 20-24 (Monograph). SDO18399.

<2> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1902 (Map). SWX1540.

(ST 96241826 to ST 96851760) British Trackway (NR) (twice)

<3> Royal Archaeological Institute, 1947, The Archaeological Journal 104, 42 (Serial). SDO18401.

<4> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 08-APR-54 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 209839 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Sep 3 2022 1:58PM