MSO8652 - Hill Farm, Withycombe (Monument)

Deserted farm, Higher Rodhuish Road. [1] The boundary of this record has been edited to reflect the historic mapping available to the HER and has been brought back to the edge of the National Park boundary. The original farmstead did extend further to the east (see External Links; Somerset HER entry PRN 34281 [1]). The extent within the National Park shown on the Withycombe Tithe Map depicts seven buildings, four grouped around ST 0139 4069 (including MSO8639) and three at ST 0134 4063. By the time the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map was surveyed, only one building remained in the southern group and one had been removed from the northern group. The final southern building had been removed by the time the 2nd Edition map was surveyed, and it appears that the two buildings in the northern group in the northern corner of the area have been subject to alteration in plan form. [2-6] A small bank and possible building platform are visible on aerial photographs as slight earthworks. At ST 0143 4057 (outside the Park boundary), a possible rectangular platform can be seen, measuring 6 metres long by 3 metres wide, while at ST 0134 4061 (inside the boundary), a short low earthwork bank is visible, measuring approximately 4 metres long. The rectangular platform lies close to a narrow trackway which apparently leads from Higher Rodhuish Road to a triangular field [1]. The 1841 census records three farms with the name "Hill Farm" in Withycombe; Higher Hill Farm, Middle Hill Farm and Lower Hill Farm, indicating that the settlement is shrunken rather than deserted [7]. Only Hill Farm is depicted on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, indicating that any addition settlement was abandoned between 1840 and publication of the map in 1888 [3]. [8,9] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [10]