Enclosure and Romano-British settlement north-west of Imber

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1010024
Date first listed:: 16-Mar-1966

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1010024
Date first listed:: 16-Mar-1966
Date of most recent amendment:: 04-Jan-1990

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Heytesbury
National Grid Reference:: ST 95357 49468

Reasons for Designation

The most complete and extensive survival of chalk downland archaeological remains in central southern England occurs on Salisbury Plain, particularly in those areas lying within the Salisbury Plain Training Area. These remains represent one of the few extant archaeological "landscapes" in Britain and are considered to be of special significance because they differ in character from those in other areas with comparable levels of preservation. Individual sites on Salisbury Plain are seen as being additionally important because the evidence of their direct association with each other survives so well.

Enclosures provide important evidence of land use and agricultural practices in the prehistoric/Romano-British period. The enclosures in the Salisbury Plain Training Area belong to one of the most important and best preserved fossil landscapes in southern Britain. The presence of these remains and their relationship with extensive field systems and settlement complexes, are of critical importance to understanding the character and development of Downland agriculture.

Prehistoric and later period villages surviving as earthworks are rare nationally, as are any associations with contemporary field systems or other landholdings. The importance of the examples in the Salisbury Plain Training Area is considerably enhanced by the demonstrable relationship between the settlements, field systems and major boundary earthworks which provide exceptionally complete evidence of human reorganisation of the landscape. This makes the examples in the Training Area worthy of national protection.

Details

A sub-rectangular enclosure of Iron age/Romano-British date, possibly for stock. There are remains of building platforms probably of Romano-British date some 50m to the west. Partial excavation took place in the 19th century.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 10101
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Other
Trust for Wessex Archaeology, (1987)
Wiltshire Library & Museum Service, (1987)

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.