Summary

Situated to the W of the enclosed fields of Kipscombe Farm are a series of banked enclosures either side of the Lighthouse road. They do not seem to constitute a coherent group of fields and may represent temporary ‘rye-break’, created in the medieval period for use of common land for one season, and abandoned. A field system of probable medieval date on Countisbury Common is visible on aerial photographs as a series of linear earthworks abutting the extant field boundaries, approximately 350 metres to the west of Kipscombe Combe.

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Description

On the northern slopes of Barna Barrow, to the west of the modern enclosed fields of Kipscombe Farm are fragments of banked enclosures on either side of Lighthouse road. They do not appear to belong to a coherent and continuous group pf early fields, such as those between ' Countisbury Church and The Foreland (100,262). They may well be traces of the small temporary enclosures known as "Rye -breaks" created in medieval and later periods to allow one crop to be taken from an area enclosed from the common for just one season. [1]
Situated to the W of the enclosed fields of Kipscombe Farm are a series of banked enclosures either side of the Lighthouse road. They do not seem to constitute a coherent group of fields and may represent temporary ‘rye-break’, created in the medieval period for use of common land for one season, and abandoned. They appear to be more extensive than originally mapped in 1986, especially in the area between Kipscombe and Coddow Combe, but visibility is dependent upon vegetation cover, and in places this is thick gorse and bracken. Except for a small rectangular enclosure, none of the features are shown on the historic map sequences. [2]
A possible Medieval field system is visible on aerial photographs as a series of linear earthworks on Countisbury Common between SS 7565 4985 and SS 7580 4965. It is approximately 350 metres to the west of Kipscombe Combe. The earthworks abut the extant field boundaries to the north-west of Kipscombe Farm, and clearly relate to an earlier phase of enclosure, presumably incomplete or unsuccessful. Faint traces of ridge and furrow between the possibly incomplete field boundaries at circa SS 756501 may indicate further earthwork survival, but these are too poorly defined to transcribe. [3]

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