MMO806 - Post-medieval field system on Withiel Hill (Monument)

A field system in the form of banks creating large and small fields, irregular sub fields and a trackway were noted on aerial photographs taken of Withiel Hill in 1947 and 1971. The area had been ploughed. [1-3] The extensive earthwork remains of a post-medieval field system on Withiel Hill which consists of banked rectilinear enclosures with traces of cultivation marks within many of the fields. The narrow ridge and furrow cultivation is described separately in record MSO8957. The field system is cut through by a trackway known as the Herepath Saxon Trackway (MSO11642) which is defined in part by the field system with traces of extensive use and reuse. The trackway is aligned roughly east to west and marks the line of the parish boundary between the parishes of Treborough/Luxborough and Bompton Regis. The field system and trackway were seen as earthworks and mapped from aerial photographs. [4-6] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [7] Elements of the rectilinear, east-west aligned field system are visible as extant earthworks in LiDAR imagery and as cropmarks in recent aerial photographs, although the field boundaries plotted by the NMP themselved have been removed. Survival is best in the area centred upon SS 99038 35702. [8] This record was enhanced by Cornwall HER for the Forestry Commission's Project K. [9]