Monument record MDO759 - Deserted medieval settlement of Herrison, Charminster

Remains of closes and hollow-way belonging to the deserted hamlet of Herrison are clearly defined on air photographs. <1>

There are no discernible remains of this settlement. The lower flattish area was utilized as water-meadow, and has subsequently been ploughed; modern drainage channels are visible across the area. Traces of a north-west to south-east trackway 9.5 metres wide are visible.

In the north of the field are the remains of a small fieldbank 4.0 metres wide and 0.5 metres high joining the modern field boundary to make a small field some 90 metres square. No remains warranting survey on M.S.D. <3>

The site of a deserted medieval settlement is visible as earthworks on aerial photographs <1> to the west of Herrison Cottages. The medieval earthworks appear to be overlain by later post medieval drainage features.

<1> Royal Air Force, 22-JAN-1948, RAF/CPE/UK/2431 4132-3 (Aerial Photograph). SDO10895.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 71 (Monograph). SDO146.

'(24) SETTLEMENT REMAINS (675943), formerly part of the hamlet of Herrison, lie on the E. side of the R. Cerne at the mouth of a small tributary valley, 1/4 m. S. of Herrison House. The settlement is one of the Cernes in Domesday Book but cannot be identified with certainty, though Eyton (123-4) suggested that it was one of the Cernes belonging to the Count of Mortain (D.B. Vol I, f.97a) of three hides. If this is correct the recorded population is either six or eight, depending on which three-hide manor is the correct one. Only four tax-payers are listed in 1333 and the settlement is among a list of Dorset vills granted a tax reduction in 1435 (P.R.O., E.179/103/79). The remains consist of four closes, 30 yds. Long and 20 yds. Wide, lying on either side of a slight hollow-way, 30 ft. wide, running N.E. up the tributary valley. There are no certain building sites. Low scarps and banks all around are perhaps the remains of other closes. The field is called Rough Piece on the Tithe Map of 1839'.

<3> Attrill, N J, Field Investigators Comments NJA, F1 NJA 17-MAR-81 (Unpublished document). SDO14743.

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1994, Medieval Village Research Group Index, PRN 505 (Index). SDO16386.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453481 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 22 2024 4:48PM