Summary
Enclosed Romano-British farmsteads 635m east of Kingsmead Farm.
Reasons for Designation
Later Iron Age and Romano-British occupation included a range of settlement types. The surviving remains comprise farmsteads, hamlets, villages and hillforts, which together demonstrate an important sequence of settlement. The non-defensive enclosed farm or homestead represents the smallest and simplest of these types. Most early examples are characterised by a curvilinear enclosure with circular domestic buildings and associated agricultural structures. Where excavated, these sites are also found to contain pits or rectangular post- built structures for the storage of grain and other produce, evidence of an organised and efficient farming system. The surrounding enclosures would have provided protection against cattle rustling and tribal raiding. The simple farmsteads are sometimes superseded by rectilinear or triangular shaped enclosures with rectilinear buildings and many examples were occupied over an extended period and some grew in size and complexity. In central and southern England, most enclosed Iron Age farmsteads are situated in areas which are now under intensive arable cultivation. As a result, although some examples survive with upstanding earthworks, the majority have been recorded as crop- and soil-marks appearing on aerial photographs. Despite past cultivation the enclosed Romano-British farmsteads 635m east of Kingsmead Farm survive comparatively well and will contain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to their construction, development, function, date, relative chronologies, interrelationships, social organisation, longevity, agricultural practices, domestic arrangements and overall landscape context.
History
See Details.
Details
This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 3 June 2015. This record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records. As such they do not yet have the full descriptions of their modernised counterparts available. Please contact us if you would like further information.
This monument includes several enclosed Romano-British farmsteads situated on the southern bank and floodplain of the River Dene. The farmsteads survive as entirely buried structures, layers and deposits visible as a complex series of crop and soil marks on aerial photographs with no surface remains. There are at least three large rectangular enclosures two of which are apparently joined together with at least two hut circles, pit alignments and ditches and other ancillary rectangular and linear features and additional enclosures. In 1823 a burial urn was found in the field and there have been stray finds of Iron Age and Romano-British pottery.
