Summary
Deserted settlement including a sunken trackway, building platforms, ponds and part of a field system. The settlement has Iron Age origins and was occupied until the C4 of the Romano-British period, when it was abandoned. It was occupied again from the C12, probably as a group of small farmsteads, until it became a single farmstead in the C17 until the late 1850s when it was permanently deserted.
Reasons for Designation
The deserted settlement known as Pickwick Farm, including ponds and part of a field system, which has Iron Age origins and was periodically occupied until the mid-C19, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: the features which survive as earthworks, including house platforms and a sunken trackway, and the ponds to the east, depict the plan and form of the settlement across four evolving periods of occupation;
* Potential: despite some small-scale excavation, the site will retain both archaeological and waterlogged deposits, and further buried artefacts, which have the potential to increase our understanding of the settlement and its social, practical and economic functioning with the wider landscape;
* Diversity: for the range of features which provide evidence of the phasing of the site, particularly from when it was reoccupied in the C14;
* Group value: with the scheduled monument known as Maes Knoll Camp to the east, which is broadly contemporary with the origin of the settlement.
History
During the Iron Age (800 BC – AD 43) the number and range of settlements increased substantially as the simple agricultural regimes of the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age transitioned to settled and intensive practices. Iron Age farmsteads comprised dwelling places for individual families or kinship groups engaged in mixed farming. These sites typically consist of clusters of roundhouses and rectangular buildings, sometimes enclosed by a curvilinear defensive ditch. This settlement form continued through the Romano British period, when it is estimated that 90 per cent of the population lived in rural farmsteads, villas and villages. Some of these settlements were abandoned after the Roman period and reoccupied in the medieval period, again as groups of small farmsteads normally occupied by only one or two families and comprising small groups of buildings with attached yards, gardens and enclosures. These were a characteristic feature of the medieval rural landscape. They occur throughout the country, the intensity of their distribution determined by local topography and the nature of the agricultural system prevalent within the region. In some areas of dispersed settlement, they were the predominant settlement form; elsewhere they existed alongside, or were components of, more nucleated settlement patterns. The sites of many farmsteads have been occupied down to the present day, but others were abandoned as a result of, for example, declining economic viability, enclosure or emparkment, or epidemics like the Black Death.
There are several medieval references to the deserted settlement known as Pickwick Farm, the earliest being from 1235-36 when it was called ‘Prikewike’. At this time, it may have been a self-sufficient hamlet, comprising three or four small farmsteads, annexed to the village of Norton Hawkfield, less than a mile to the south in the river valley. A field system which partially survives on a slope to the south of the settlement may be based on prehistoric land enclosure.
A limited excavation of the site took place in 1969 (see Barton in Sources), prompted by remains seen in 1958 of stone buildings, house platforms, springs, a road system, and evidence of a field system. Barton suggested that the road may be part of the earliest phase of settlement, with paths to the house platforms and a spring branching off it. To the east of the site ponds with stone retaining-walls were observed, with one paved for cattle. Two house sites to the west and a platform to the east were excavated. One house (House 1) was discovered to have at least two phases of stone walling, below which, in the north-east corner, were two postholes with packing stones, charcoal and potsherds, and two further postholes. House 2, located under a line of mature chestnut trees to the west, also revealed evidence of postholes, some of which were packed with red clay. Two pits and a posthole were found in the centre of this platform; finds within the pits were principally Iron Age in date. Finds from the excavation at House 1, below stone tumble, roofing material and wattle and daub, included C19 coins and pottery; the layer below was dominated by sherds of pottery from the C17 and C18, although C13, C15 and Romano-British pottery including a piece of Samian bowl, and sherds of Iron Age pottery, were found. The ground to the west of House 2 brought up pottery of all of these periods, although largely dated to the late C17 and early C18; a possibly Romano-British spindle whorl and further pottery; and triangular Iron Age-type loom weights. A large, worked flint was found at the bottom of a posthole in House 2, and a ditch to its west contained further pottery sherds from all periods; further details can be found in Barton (see Sources). A single trench on the south side of the eastern platform largely turned up late C17 and mid-C19 pottery and was probably a midden or pit.
From these excavations, Barton concluded that the earliest, probably Iron Age, houses on the two platforms were square or rectangular and constructed of wattle and daub walls off timber posts, perhaps raising the south side of House 2 to accommodate the slope. The date of foundation, as an undefended settlement, was suggested as no earlier than 300 BC, and is therefore broadly contemporary with Maes Knoll Iron Age fort, some 900m to the east of Pickwick. Finds suggest that the settlement was occupied until the fifth century of the Romano-British period, and again in the C12 until final abandonment in the late 1850s.
A 1981 earthwork survey of the site recorded four principal house platforms (A-D), a field system to the south, and a spring and ponds to the east. The survey concluded that the eastern house on the Site C platform was probably the site of a C17 or C18 farmhouse, whilst two previously unrecorded building platforms within the field system (Site E) and on its northern edge were also noted (see Iles and Williams in Sources). The survey also suggested that the early medieval layout may have originated from the earliest period of occupation in the Iron Age.
The farmstead is thought to have been abandoned in the late 1850s, when Model Farm downhill to the south of the site was built by Sir Greville Smyth (1836-1901) of Long Ashton.
The farmstead is recorded on Symth Estate plans in 1737 and 1851, which are replicated in the MVRG journal (see Sources). The farmstead is depicted on the 1839 Tithe map, labelled as Pickwick Farm and with two buildings shown: one an inverted L-shape in plan and a rectangular building to its east; these occupy Site C. The accompanying Tithe apportionment lists the owner and occupier of the large field to the south of the farm as Sir John Smyth and William King respectively. The field name is recorded as ‘part of Cow Leaze’. By the time of the 1885 Ordnance Survey (OS) only one building remained standing, although smaller buildings to its north are depicted as unroofed; again, these are on Site C. The map shows the settlement area surrounded by an irregular boundary, with mature trees to the south-west hedge line. A spring is marked to the east, outside of the boundary. Pickwick Farm is documented in several sources, including by Barton in 1969, and the MVRG and Avon Archaeology in 1982 (see Sources). The site is well-recorded on the county Historic Environment Record and is evident in aerial photographs from 1946 through to 2024.
Details
SUMMARY OF ASSET
Deserted settlement including a sunken trackway, building platforms, ponds and part of a field system. The settlement has Iron Age origins and was occupied until the C4 of the Romano-British period, when it was abandoned. It was occupied again from the C12, probably as a group of small farmsteads, until it became a single farmstead in the C17 until the late 1850s when it was permanently deserted.
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
Located on a south-facing slope of the eastern spur of Dundry Hill and overlooking the Chew Valley is a deserted settlement known as Pickwick Farm. Medieval earthworks comprising banks and scarps overlay evidence of Iron Age and Romano-British occupation and are themselves overlaid with evidence of occupation as a farmstead from the C17 to mid-C19. The site is approached off a ridgeway to the west of Maes Knoll hill fort, with a sunken way leading diagonally downhill from the north-west corner of the site. To the east of the site are three stone-lined ponds, and to the south is the remains of a field system, both of which were re-worked in the C17 or C18 but have earlier but unknown origins.
DESCRIPTION
The deserted settlement is largely arable grassland covering an area of around five acres (two hectares) which slopes from north to south. To the west are three mature horse-chestnut trees and a hawthorn, the north and east boundaries are mixed hedgerows, and there is modern stock fencing to the south and west. A sunken way about 5m wide and with earthwork banks up to 1.5m high, runs from the north-west corner of the field, diagonally south-east and then south between building platforms at sites A and C, around the large platform to the north of site D (and also perhaps to its east) and into the field system below. It potentially also continued down the hill to the present site of the Model Farm and onwards to Norton Hawkfield although no earthworks are visible. The four principal rectangular platforms are formed by banks and scarps up to 2m high and are roughly orientated east to west. The enclosures retain material evidence of buildings and may also have contained small garden plots.
From the north-west moving south-east, on the west side of the trackway is the platform known as Site A in 1981 and containing House 1 and House 2 (ST5910566188 and ST5909466165). The platform to House 1 is rectangular in plan, roughly 10m by 4m. The 1969 excavation revealed walling of two periods and a limestone-cobbled floor. House 2 is on the western edge of Site A and south of a wide stone-wall footing. The platform is level and rectangular and measures approximately 9m by 6m with a ditch on its east side, and banks on all sides, and a dry-stone wall to the west. This wall connects with another which forms the western boundary of the settlement. These walls are evidenced by low earthworks.
Site B is in the south-west corner of the settlement enclosure at ST5907966113, and measures about 35m by 30m. Its eastern earthwork is discernible, and there is an area of flat ground between it and the area occupied by Site A. Its southern edge is clear as it drops down to the field gate at the south-west corner.
The platform known as Site C in 1981 is at ST5914666192. The rectangular platform measures approximately 50m by 25m and is of two distinct equally-sized compartments marked by earthworks; there is also a bank about 1m high along its southern edge. Large lumps of limestone and rubble protrude from the south-west corner of the bank. This is likely to be the location of the most recently constructed building, dating to the C17 or C18; a building was extant here in 1851, occupying the western compartment.
The southernmost platform, known as Site D in 1981, is at ST5915266135, and adjoins the south-east side of a large platform at NGR ST5912866138. The latter was surveyed as a rectangular platform in 1981, but its earthwork banks and on oblique aerial photographs presents a more triangular shape, about 35m east to west. Site D is roughly 14m square but is not clearly apparent as an earthwork.
To the east of the settlement and just beyond the eastern field boundary at ST5921566184, are three ponds fed by a natural spring. The ponds have straight sides with limestone-rubble retaining walls with quoins about 1.5m high, with a similar wall between the north and central pond, and a rough low wall between the central and south ponds. The central pond is rectangular and has a paved slope down from the west, presumably for cattle to access the water. There is also evidence of a rough cobbled surface around the ponds in general, and two large stone slabs on the north-east side may have been purposefully placed for better access.
The field system to the south is located on a slope which rises 50m from south to north. The 155m contour plateaus to the southern field boundary of the settlement. Earthworks surveyed in 1981 can also be seen on oblique aerial photographs but are not clearly visible on the ground.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The scheduled area is defined by boundaries to the north, east and west and including the ponds on the eastern side. The southern extent takes in a sample of the field system on the sloping ground below which also acts as a management buffer to the settlement site.
EXCLUSIONS
All modern fencing and gates are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath them is included.
