MMO518 - Post-medieval agricultural and plantation earthworks on Cloggs Down (Monument)

Field boundary banks, ridge and furrow and at least two mounds, some of which may be associated with the 19th and early 20th Century plantation documented here. The field boundary banks might represent failed agricultural enclosure.

A complex of earthworks comprising field boundary banks, ridge and furrow and at least two mounds are recorded on Cloggs Down. Some of the features may be associated with the 19th Century plantation documented at this reference on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey maps. The banks correspond with plantation boundary; the others probably represent temporary agricultural enclosures. [1-3] A complex of earthworks comprising field boundary banks and ridge and furrow are visible on aerial photographs on Cloggs Down centred on circa SS 8342 3157. The mounds described by [1] cannot be seen. Some of the ridge and furrow might be tree banks, associated with the 19th and early 20th Century plantation, still marked on the 1:2500 Ordnance Survey 1905 map of Devonshire. The plantation is depicted to the northeast of a leat or carriage gutter, also depicted on the map, and corresponds well with earthwork remains. Further ridge and furrow is visible to the south-west of the gutter, perhaps indicating an earlier phase of plantation or represent a failed episode of agricultural enclosure. A linear earthwork bank can be seen to the west of this area of ridge and furrow and may be the remains of a field boundary. A circa 130 metre long hollow abutting an extant field boundary to the east of the former plantation, on the upper slopes of Cloggs Down, may be evidence of erosion of a further boundary, perhaps indicating that larger areas of Cloggs Down had been enclosed than is now apparent. The earthworks remain visible on the Google Earth images available at the time of survey. [4-7] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [8]