MMO416 - Medieval or post-medieval field system above Sparcombe Water and River Exe confluence (Monument)

Field boundaries were seen on [unspecified] aerial photographs and plotted on the Somerset County Council SMR map. [1] Linear earthwork banks are visible on aerial photographs of the 1940s onwards, defining approximately 45 hectares of possibly medieval field system on the upper southwest facing slopes above the confluence of Sparcombe Water and the River Exe, centred on circa SS 8213 4049. A number of the longer and more regular field boundaries have been preserved in the extant, largely 19th Century field pattern. However, it is clear that the remainder had been superseded by the 19th Century enclosure, probably part of wider agricultural improvements. A gutter or leat from Sparcombe Water, supplying Westermill Farm, cuts a number of the earlier boundaries (MMO522) and many of the shorter and curvilinear boundaries, defining more irregularly shaped fields, are visible only as relict boundaries, including those enclosing the steep combe sides above Sparcombe Water and the River Exe. By the 1970s the relict field boundaries had been largely levelled. [2-7] The field system was also transcribed by McDonnell from aerial photographs. It was described as small rectangular enclosures with an associated trackway leading north through a curving and subrectangular field system defined by banks. [8-10] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [11]