Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Numerous shallow ditches are visible on 1940s aerial photographs. They appear to be lost sub-divisions of the extant mapped field system. Examination of modern aerial photographs suggests that many of them have been removed by quarrying.

Monument Types

• DITCH (Medieval to Post Medieval - 1066 AD to 1900 AD)
• FIELD SYSTEM (Medieval to Post Medieval - 1066 AD to 1900 AD)

Full description

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Numerous shallow ditches are visible on 1940s RAF vertical aerial photographs [1]. All are roughly perpendicular to field boundaries extant on historic Ordnance Survey mapping and they appear to mark lost sub-divisions of that field system. Examination of modern aerial photographs suggests that the majority of these features have been removed by quarrying [2].

Field systems in this area are derived from fields developed following land reclamation from the Wantsum Channel and surrounding marshes between the 11th and 18th centuries. Although the precise date is unclear, the regularity of field shapes and rectilinear nature of boundaries suggest that the system may derive from the latter end of this period.

A transcription of the features recorded from aerial photography exists within a GIS layer held by this HER [3].

<2> Google Earth (Graphic material). SWX15704.

<3> Wessex Archaeology, 2009-10, South-East Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey - Aerial Photographic Transcriptions (Digital archive). SWX15705.

<3> Wessex Archaeology, 2011, South East Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey - (SE RCZAS) Phase 1: National Mapping Programme Report (Unpublished document). SKE25955.

<3> Cornwall Council Historic Environment Projects and Gloucestershire County Council, 2011, South East Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey National Mapping Programme Components 1&2: Results of NMP Mapping (Unpublished document). SKE25954.

Sources and further reading

Related records