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.
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
unusually complete evidence of human reorganisation of the landscape. This
makes the examples in the Training Area worthy of national protection.
Details
The monument includes an area of Romano-British settlement earthworks bisected
by a series of downland tracks and hollow ways, situated on a south east
facing spur on the southern edge of Coombe Down. It also includes elements of
field systems and both earlier, Iron Age, and later, Saxon, settlement
remains.
The Romano-British site was first identified by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in 1812
who referred to it as `....another very extensive British village....' and in
1928 O G S Crawford, who photographed and surveyed the site, referred to the
ground being covered with sherds of Romano-British pottery. More recently,
between 1992-1993, the monument was subject to a detailed investigation by the
Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England which included both
earthwork and geophysical survey and was complemented by a series of small
scale excavations undertaken by the University of Reading. The survey and
excavations have revealed evidence that the monument had several phases of
occupation spanning some 1200 years.
The earliest features include a pit and a series of `working hollows', dated
by pottery to the early Iron Age. By the middle Iron Age, the settlement
remains included a large, partly bivallate, ditched enclosure 250m in diameter
with an entrance on the east side. Excavation has shown the inner ditch of
this enclosure to be 5m wide at the top and 3.5m deep.
In contrast to these imposing Iron Age earthworks, the early Romano-British
settlement is represented by a much smaller trapezoidal enclosure associated
with first to second century AD pottery. These remains are no longer visible
on the ground but have been plotted by geophysical survey and survive as
buried features.
The later Romano-British settlement, which partly overlies the Iron Age
enclosure, occupies an area of approximately 3.5ha and, from the earthwork
survey, appears to overlie part of an extensive system of rectangular fields,
indicating an earlier origin for this field system. The settlement remains
comprise a series of rectangular and sub-rectangular hollows set within
embanked compounds. A track, which develops into a deep hollow way, crosses
the settlement with branches leading off it to some of the compounds. Two
further branches lead to the site of an old spring-pond in the valley below.
The excavations revealed evidence that at least some of the fields remained
under cultivation into the fourth century AD or later. These were subsequently
abandoned, however, and by the late fifth or early sixth century a Saxon
sunken floored house was established against a former field edge. This
occupation does not appear to extend beyond the sixth century.
Traces of ridge and furrow type ploughing suggest that the site was under
cultivation in medieval times and in the south east corner, this cultivation
is cut by two parallel hollow ways which form part of a downland track network
known to have been in existence by 1773.
All fence and gate posts, and feeding and water troughs are excluded from the
scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
31191
Legacy System:
RSM
End of official list entry
