Compton Farm Romano-British and Early Medieval occupation sites and associated cultivation earthworks

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1017863
Date first listed:: 08-Jan-1990

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1017863
Date first listed:: 08-Jan-1990

Location

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

District:: Wiltshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Enford
National Grid Reference:: SU 12320 52078, SU 12768 51791, SU 12881 52107

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.

Romano-British settlements related to surviving field systems are rare nationally. Well preserved field systems provide important evidence for agricultural practices and the pattern of land tenure. The significance of the monument is considerably enhanced by the evidence for Saxon occupation of the site.

Details

A Romano-British occupation site and associated system of lynchets. The cultivation earthworks survive in three discrete areas. There is some evidence of early medieval activity in the area of Romano-British occupation. The monument includes: - 1 - an occupation site located in a pipe trench and yielding Romano-British artefacts datable to the C1st-C4th AD. Middle Saxon pottery was also retrieved from the trench. 2 - a complex of strip lynchets surviving in three discrete areas on the north and south-facing sides of a dry valley.

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:: 10038
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.