Summary
A Late Iron Age enclosure, and associated earthworks, the latter perhaps part of a boundary feature with which the enclosure may be integrated.
Reasons for Designation
The enclosed settlement at Chelwood Gate is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity / representativity: it is a relatively rare survival of the Iron Age settlement and cultivation of the High Weald, then densely wooded and sparsely populated;
* Group value: Chelwood Gate forms an extended group with three scheduled Iron Age monuments, and is of importance in understanding the nature and organisation of land use in the area;
* Survival / condition: of upstanding earthworks and archaeological deposits which remain relatively untouched by later activity, and represent a comparatively rare survival in a national context;
* Potential: the site contains buried archaeological and environmental deposits which have the potential to provide valuable evidence for the Iron Age occupation of the High Weald.
History
Iron Age enclosed farmsteads are generally represented by curvilinear enclosures containing evidence of a small group of 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 wild animals, cattle rustling and tribal raiding. 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.
The area of the present Ashdown Forest lay within an extensive and sparsely-populated area of woodland, known during the Anglo-Saxon period as ‘Andredes weald’. Rev Edward Turner, writing in 1862, reported that the Chelwood Gate enclosure was known locally as ‘Dane’s Churchyard’, after a tradition that it was the burial place for Danes slaughtered at a battle with the Saxons. After the Norman Conquest, Ashdown Forest became a deer hunting park. NE-SW aligned ridge and furrow has been recorded in the area immediately adjacent to the enclosure (HER number MES8687), indicating that it was under partial cultivation in the medieval and/or post-medieval periods. In the late C17 parts of the Forest were enclosed and other areas were declared subject to the rights of common, and its continuing use for pannage for pigs, cattle grazing and timber is likely. During the post-medieval period, parallel drainage ditches were dug on the site, producing iron slag, pottery and clay pipe. Chelwood Gate was the site of an infantry training centre in the Second World War.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION HISTORY: the monument was first investigated in 1860 by the Sussex Archaeological Society with negative results. The upstanding earthworks were first recorded on the 1956 revision of the Ordnance Survey 25'' mapping. Excavations of 1985-88 by the Garden Hill Excavation Group suggested several phases of occupation. Thin scatters of Mesolithic flints suggest intermittent activity on the site in the Mesolithic period, while furrows underlying the earthworks suggest that the site was cultivated prior to the construction of the enclosure. The settlement seems to have been established in the Late Iron Age, its occupants engaged in a mixed farming economy. The enclosure earthworks are situated in a non-defensive position and probably delineate a settlement area perhaps equivalent to a farmstead.
Three phases of Late Iron Age activity were suggested by the 1980s excavators. Phase 1 comprised a small enclosure delimited by pallisades and overlying earlier cultivation furrows. The enclosure contained at least one round house and evidence of iron smelting. Eastern Atrebatic pottery was also found. During Phase 2 the enclosure was strengthened with a bank and ditch. Phase 3 consisted of a ditch being dug across the entrance. Pits in the interior produced evidence of iron smelting activity and Eastern Atrebatic pottery. Chelwood Gate is one of three enclosures and possible field systems on Ashdown Forest, the others being scheduled: King’s Standing (NHLE: 1002222) and Greenwood Gate (NHLE: 1002232). A scheduled Late Iron Age promontory hillfort lies some 2.8 km to the NE at Garden Hill (NHLE: 1014524). It has been suggested (Butler 2008) that the enclosures represented farmsteads subordinate to and outlying Garden Hill, which may have functioned as a central place for control and redistribution. There is no evidence that occupation continued into the Romano-British period.
Details
The partially-excavated earthworks of a Late Iron Age enclosure, and associated earthworks, the latter perhaps part of a boundary feature with which the enclosure may be integrated.
The monument is located on a gentle SW-facing spur at the W edge of Ashdown Forest on the High Weald. It occupies an area of open and unimproved heathland covered with heather, bracken and gorse. The archaeological evidence suggests two principal phases of Iron Age occupation at the site: a sub-rectangular enclosure delineated by a palisade, which in turn was superseded by a bank and ditch, possibly integrated with a linear feature which continues to the SW. Early aerial photographs indicate that this feature continues some 165m to the SW before curving to the SE. The linear bank and ditch may represent an associated boundary feature with which the enclosure may be integrated. However only the part of this feature which is adjacent to the enclosure is included in the scheduling. A disused trackway bisects the earthwork N-S, cutting its N and SW extents. To the W is a band of woodland and a track runs alongside the enclosure to the E.
The sub-rectangular enclosure measures around 87m from NE to SW, by 67m transversely and encloses 0.31ha. It is provided with five openings or entrances. The interior is raised approximately 0.6m above the surrounding ground level and is surrounded by a bank up to 1.3m in height with traces of an external ditch. Within the enclosure was excavated the curved gulley and internal post-holes of a round house of approximately 10m diameter. Running from the SW entrance is a bank and ditch, a short section of which is included in the scheduling.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: the scheduling is intended to protect the known extent of the buried archaeological evidence and upstanding earthworks relating to the Iron Age enclosure at Chelwood Gate. A portion of the linear bank and ditch which runs SW from the SW entrance of the enclosure is included within the scheduling to preserve its relationship with the enclosure.
EXCLUSIONS: all fences, fenceposts and gates are excluded from the scheduling, together with all modern paths and tracks. The ground beneath all these items is, however, included.
