More information : A field system 50 acres in size on Penning Down, centred SU 040550. (1)
Signs of cultivation are visible in the area given by Grinsell, and small paddocks at SU 038552, perhaps the site of a farmstead. Other eroded banks and lynchets are visible on an east-facing slope around SU 036545. (2)
The field system has been ploughed out. There is an area of disturbed ground probably from old surface chalk diggings at SU 038552, at present under pasture, but no coherent pattern could be made out. At SU 036545, recent ploughing has destroyed all traces of early cultivation. (3)
The earthwork remains of this 'Celtic' field system can be seen on aerial photographs taken in 1946. The majority of these remains are in the form of narrow banks aligned north -south along the similarly aligned coombe on Penning Down, centred on SU 0422 5501. On leveller ground at the northern end of this group (SU 0417 5550), though physically separate, is a curving bank. These earthworks are broad and this spread may have been caused by later ploughing). To the west of the coombe centred on SU 0387 5501 is a group of narrow banks aligned south west - north east. Some of these may be part of a 'Celtic' field system but the area also appears to have been ploughed in the medieval or post-medieval periods and some of the banks may be ridges from this later phase of cultivation. Overlying this field sytem are the earthworks of post medieval field banks. These are recorded in NMR 1486168. The possible paddocks described by the previous authority at SU 038552 appear to be the remains of quarrying (see NMR 1486155).(4) |