MMO1778 - Medieval enclosure south of Brendon (Monument)

Evidence of short-lived enclosure activity, potentially of medieval date, is visible on aerial photographs as earthwork field boundaries and possible ridge and furrow, in rough ground approximately 150 metres to the south of Leeford Farm, Brendon. The earthworks are visible on a steep slope which climbs between 220 to 260 metres above Ordnance Datum, centred on circa SS 769 84799, and cover an area of almost 1.2 hectares. The boundaries are not marked on the 1:2500 scale 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1889 [3], but appear to abut, and may be contemporary with, a small sub-rectangular enclosure marked and still extant within this area. Narrow ridge and furrow within the areas defined by the boundaries may be evidence an attempts at agricultural improvement. The highest 10 metres of this area contains natural outcrops of bedrock which may have made such improvement uneconomic. A possible hollow way and flanking earthwork banks may cross under the line of the extant enclosure and might therefore be evidence for an earlier phase of organisation. On the available aerial photographs vegetation and poor lighting obscures the area between the westernmost linear earthwork and Cross Lane, which might contain further remains. Similar earthworks 200 metres along Cross Lane to the southwest may be part of the same phase of enclosure activity. [1-4] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [5]