Reasons for Designation
Itford Hill style settlements are small domestic settlements of one to three
households, usually covering an area of between 1ha and 3ha, comprising a
series of small banked compounds set back to back. The compounds are
frequently associated with tracks and hollow ways which link the settlements
to field systems, and round barrow cemeteries are often nearby. The
settlements date to the Late Bronze Age (tenth to eighth centuries BC).
Excavated examples have shown that the compounds usually contain circular
wooden buildings varying in diameter from 3m to 8m, with entrance porches.
Associated with these structures would have been a series of working areas and
fenced compounds; small ponds have also been found. Finds, including
loomweights and carbonised grain, provide evidence for the practice of a mixed
farming economy.
Itford Hill style settlements are found in southern England, principally in
the chalk downland of Sussex where Itford Hill itself is located. They are a
rare monument type, with less than 20 examples known nationally.
Beneficial land use over the years has enabled Bow Hill and Kingley Vale to
support one of the most diverse and well preserved areas of chalk downland
archaeological remains in south eastern England. These remains are considered
to be of particular significance because they include types of monument,
dating from the prehistoric and Roman periods, more often found in Wessex and
south western Britain. The well preserved and often visible relationship
between trackways, settlement sites, land boundaries, stock enclosures, flint
mines, ceremonial and funerary monuments in the area gives significant insight
into successive changes in the pattern of land use over time.
Despite limited disturbance by 20th century military activity and the action
of tree roots on the margins of the site, the settlement in Kingley Vale
survives well and contains archaeological remains and environmental evidence
relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed. The
settlement is situated close to a cross dyke which straddles the ridge 150m to
the south west. These monuments are broadly contemporary and their close
association will provide evidence for the relationship between settlement and
land division during the period of their construction and use.
Details
The monument includes a Late Bronze Age Itford Hill style settlement situated
near the bottom of the south eastern slope of Bow Hill, a ridge of the Sussex
Downs.
The settlement is a group of at least five roughly circular and semicircular
banked compounds between 8m and 30m in diameter. The compound interiors are
hollows up to 0.5m deep, and the enclosing banks survive to a height of c.0.5m
above the surrounding ground. The compounds are built back to back, against,
and linked by, a series of lynchet-like banks up to 10m wide and surviving to
a height of up to 1m on the downslope side. Between the two main, parallel,
south west-north east orientated banks is an area of hummocky ground likely
to contain the buried remains of working areas and fenced compounds associated
with the settlement, although there is some evidence of World War II army
training activity on the site, which may have caused later ground disturbance.
The modern fences which cross the monument to the south, west and east are
excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 5 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.
