| Summary : Well preserved deserted medieval settlement of Witcombe. Earthworks include hollow way, lynchets, small enclosures, house platforms and a pond. Part of the site, including two house sites, is under plough. A quantity of medieval sherds and other material, including iron slag, has been recovered. |
More information : ST 48791588. Clear indications of building remains
were found on a number of closely associated sites in the valley
bottom to the NW of Horses Wood and W of Witcombe Lane. Surface
finds included typical Md pottery, mainly of 13/14th C. but a few
12th C. sherds, much Ham stone, oyster shells, and bones. The
hamlet of Witcombe, or Widcombe, is recorded in the Montacute
Cartulary, etc., and this is the traditional site. (1)
ST 489161 Well preserved Md settlement. Earthworks include
hollow way, lynchets, small enclosures, house platforms and
a pond. Part of the site, including two house sites, is under
plough. A quantity of Md sherds and other material, including
iron slag, has been recovered. (2)
Witcombe DMV (cf survival of name in Witcombe Lane on OS 25") extends
from ST 48921619 to ST 48731594 occupying about 2 hectares along the
sides of a hollow way and a narrow re-entrant under permanent pasture. There is a series of strip lynchets on the N face of the valley immediately above the settlement (ST 41 NE 43).
Crofts, and the sites of at least seven buildings, two of
long-house type, can be identified. The nucleus is now at the
SW end adjancent to a pond and in the area to the S the farmer
reports that foundations are encountered during ploughing.
Surveyed at 1:2500 (divorced survey). (3)
Site confirmed as that of the deserted hamlet of Witcombe, which
can perhaps be identified as the settlement of 4 villeins and
3 bordars in the Domesday Survey. It was still in existence in
1566, with 12 poor tenants, but was mostly deserted by 1614,
though there was at least one house there in 1671. (4)
ST 48811605. Whitcombe consists of a fairly regular arrangement of about 12 or 13 former properties laid out on both sides of a former main street. The latter survives as a hollow-way, 1.2m to 1.8m in depth, which occupies the floor of a narrow valley aligned north-east to south-west. Near the western end of the village the valley opens out and turns to the south. Near this point the hollow-way bifurcates with one arm extending around the western side of the valley bottom and the other mirroring it on the east. The pond is situated in the space between the hollow-ways, an arrangement which suggests that this area was once an open space or small village green.
The property or farmstead with the most clearly identifiable internal features is situated to the east of the pond at ST 48801598. Its morphology, in general terms at least, was probably typical of most of the other properties in the village. On the west it fronts onto the eastern arm of the main street. A slight dip in the side of the latter, at the southern end of the property, marks the access point between the street and the yard. The latter is represented by a broad sub-rectangular depression. A building platform, terraced into the hillside, stands 1.2m above the yard and on its eastern side. Low banks on top of this platform contain the remnants of the walls of a former rectangular building measuring 11.0m (N-S) by 6.5m. Opposite this building, on the other side of the yard, is a flat-topped sub-rectangular platform representing the site of a second building; it is 13.0m long (N-S) and up to 4.0m wide. The upper part of the property has been destroyed by cultivation although its boundaries are still visible as soil-marks after ploughing. Overall the property measures a maximum of 58m (N-S) by 45m.
During the early 1960s at least two former properties forming the southern end of the village were levelled by ploughing. They are still visible after ploughing with soil marks representing the position of their boundaries and stone concentrations former building sites.
The most striking elements among the properties on the north-western side of the main street are the remains of their crew yards. These are represented by broad sub-rectangular platforms cut back into the hillside; they measure on average 30m by 20m. A series of strip lynchets (ST 41 NE 43) survive on the hillside above this part of the village. Their north-east to south-west extent largely mirrors that of the village area and is evidence of their interdependency. At some stage the property boundaries were extended to divide up and enclose the lynchets (5). (6) |