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THE TRENDLE

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Enclosure of unknown date

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(ST 66730167) Earthwork (NR). (1)

Earthwork, called the Trendle, forms a roughly
rectangular enclosure, it consists of an outer bank with a
slight outer ditch on the N and E and an inner bank with a
slight inner ditch. The inner bank is of sharper profile and
more regular form and is presumably of later date; it is indeed
stated to have been a hedge-bank (Antiquity, IV, 113). Within
the enclosure is a rise in the ground of quite irregular form.
The enclosure is said to have been used for Maypole dancing. (2)

Possibly Romano-British, associated with the Cerne Giant (ST 60
SE 39). (3)

"The Trendle" or "Frying Pan"; a small banked enclosure
measuring 30.5 m by 27.4 m with a raised disturbed centre. It
may represent an Iron Age burial mound, the tomb perhaps of the
person represented by the 'Giant'. (4)

Situated at ST 66730167, terraced into the S end of a N-S spur
immediately above and E of the Cerne Abbas Giant, lies a well
preserved rectangular earthwork. The area enclosed measures
23.0 m NW-SW by 19.0m NW-SE, and is a level platform cut
into the slope. For such a small earthwork the system
of banks and ditches is complex. They consists of an
outer ditch 0.3 m deep, intact around the N side only, but
traceable around the W and E.
Inside this is a substantial bank 1.8 m high on the downhill S
side, and 1.5 m on the uphill N side broken by a possible
entrance in the S corner. A second continuous bank runs
parallel to, and inside of, the above, averaging 0.6 m high and
2.0 m wide with traces of a vestigial inner ditch 0.2 m deep.
Roughly central to the enclosure and orientated E-W lies a
rectangular mound, 15.0 m long by 10.0 m wide, and up to 0.7 m
high.

Without excavation, it is impossible to conclude the age and
purpose of this feature. However, some form of ritualistic
origin seems likely.

Surveyed at 1:2500 on MSD with 1:1250 enlargement. (5)

The earthwork is known locally as "Frying Pan". Enquiries to
establish the application of the name 'Trendle' to the feature
were negative.

Mrs Fox (b) a life long, and now also the oldest inhabitant of
Cerne Abbas, stated that she had never heard of the name
'Trendle' being applied specifically to the enclosure, but
rather it seems to some vague indeterminable area of Giant Hill
(name ST 670021). (6)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1962

( 2) General reference

RCHM West Dorset 1 1952 82

( 3) General reference

RCHM West Dorset I p xxxv

( 4) General reference

Arch Guide to Southern Eng 1973 81-2 (J Dyer)

( 5a) General reference

OS 74/088/244-26

( 5) Field Investigators Comments

F1 GB 23-JUL-77

( 6b) General reference

Mrs Fox, 21 Long Street Cerne Abbas

( 6) Field Investigators Comments

F2 JWS 27-JUL-77

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