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Summary

About 32 hectares of rectilinear fields centred at SX 737890, occur around the hillfort, visible on air photos (1947) but mostly unlocatable on the ground during 1981 Ordnance Survey field visit because of dense furze and bracken.

Location

Protected Status

• SHINE: Earthworks and cropmarks of field system, enclosures and possible hut circles of possible Bronze Age date surrounding Crandbrook Castle
• Scheduled Monument 1003860: Cranbrook Castle

Other References/Statuses

• National Monuments Record: SX78NW39
• National Record of the Historic Environment: 445570
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX78NW/111
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX78NW/112
• Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division: SX78NW39

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• FIELD SYSTEM (Early Bronze Age to Late Medieval - 2200 BC? (Between) to 1539 AD (Between))

Full description

Royal Air Force, 1946 - 1949, Royal Air Force Aerial Photographs (Aerial Photograph). SDV342938.

National Monuments Record, 1977, SX7388, 1 (Aerial Photograph). SDV306062.

National Monuments Record, 1977, SX7389, 4 (Aerial Photograph). SDV306061.

Collis, J., 1979, Cranbrook Castle Revisited, 191-4 (Article in Serial). SDV306016.

(SX 741889) Three prehistoric reaves are recognisable at Cranbrook Castle. Two are in the dense gorse to the east of the fort. The main one of these runs from a modern enclosure up the eastern slope where it seems to turn at right angle before disappearing beneath the phase 2 rampart, (see SX 78 NW 6, OS card, 1980). It is clear that the rampart at the entrance to the fort has been attached to the reave or they are of an integral and contemporary construction. Alternatively the reave may have continued northwards; there is a 3m. length of fairly convincing bank just north of the northern rampart.
The second reave follows the contour of the southern and eastern slopes, fading before it meets the modern enclosure wall. At the intersection this reave seems to be overlaid by the east to west one. North of the intersection the bank is more pronounced (than the usual 1.0m. width and 0.2m. to 0.3m. height) with hints of a ditch on the east side. The northern
extremity abuts a medieval or later enclosure.
The relationship between the reaves and fort suggests that the reaves are earlier, as would be expected, but also that the systems was still is use, if not being reconstructed, during the fort's Phase 1. This relationship is paralleled at Quarley Hill, Hants.

Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division, 1981, SX78NW39 (Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Card). SDV306057.

(23/11/1981) About 32 ha. of rectilinear fields centred at SX 737890, occur around the hillfort, visible on air photos (1947) but mostly unlocatable on the ground because of dense furze and bracken.
The fields form a fan pattern around the contours often about 40m. by 200m. in size with very slight boundary banks which, were visible, seldom exceed 1.2m. in width and 0.2m. in height. At two points, SX 73758997 and SX 73958997 (A and B on plan) the banks are cut by the hillfort ramparts ('A' is visible on the ground). A mark on the Air Photographs of a possible former path across the fort suggests that it followed a "reave", since it links two external banks. Within and to the north of the fort the system has been utilized or superimposed upon in later, probably post medieval times.
Plough strips are clear on the APs, and the score of clearance mounds in the fort are likely to be associated with this ploughing.
The prehistoric system is clearly earlier than the fort but contemporary usage or reconstruction as put forward by Collis seems unproven.
The vast amount of clearance stone in modern hedges to the south of the area suggests that the system and associated settlement extended well beyond the surviving boundaries.

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1985, Aerial Photograph Project (Dartmoor) - Dartmoor Pre-NMP (Cartographic). SDV319854.

Field system visible to the east of Cranbrook Castle at SX 74108910.

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1985, Aerial Photograph Project (Dartmoor) - Dartmoor Pre-NMP (Cartographic). SDV319854.

SX73558910 Remains of a field system to the west of Cranbrook Castle visible on 1953 and 1977 National Monuments Record aerial photographs and recorded on map overlay. Consists of a boundary running north-west by south-east from rough area as far as the quarry in the south-east (MDV27954). This is crossed by two more boundaries running in a roughly south-west by north-east direction.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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