| Summary : Two well-preserved areas of stone quarries worked during the Iron Age, Roman, Early Medieval and later periods for the production of querns and building material. Originally covering some 700 acres, the two best-preserved areas are now within woodland, although faint earthworks are visible in other areas, especialy east of Pear Ash. Other workings also survive on Bottle' Hill. The working pits are circular in plan, up to 9m in diameter and 3m deep. They are closely packed and have a bowl-shaped profile, some with traces of a lip or ring around them, suggesting a shaft mound. Scheduled. |
More information : [Centred ST 767317] Pen Pits [G.T.] (1)
A series of pits, now collapsed, covering an area of some 700 acres, many of the pits having been destroyed by cultivation. A typical pit is a circular depression, not exceeding 30ft. in diam. and up to 10ft. in depth, in the shape of a truncated cone.
Colt Hoare mention's the finding of unused querns and fragments.
Mrs Harfield notes stone mortars found in the White Cross area(7).
Excavations by Pitt-Rivers in 1879 revealed one pit beneath the rampart of the bailey of the Norman Castle [ST 73 SE 7], the rampart having been dated by glazed Medieval pottery. Tile and pottery found, possibly of Roman date, is in Taunton Museum. The excavations proved that the pits were stone quarries. The pits are now accepted as quern quarries of pre-Norman date,
probably of more than one period going back to the Iron Age. (2-7)
The surviving pits are situated along the tops and upper slopes of high ground between the 400 and 600 ft. contours. They are clearly defined in two separate areas of woodland, centred at ST 764320 and ST 766 314, and although almost filled in they can still be traced in adjacent fields (see Map Diagram). It seems certain that many other pits have been destroyed by cultivation and building. The possibly Roman tile and pottery was given to Taunton Museum in the 1940s but can no longer be traced there. Mrs. Harfield says these were casual finds, and has in her possession twelve whetstones, one block of stone deeply moulded by the shaping of whetstones and three crude mortars. These were found in the White Cross area (Wilts) but at no particular site that Mrs Harfield can recall. (8)
See Zeals Row (ST 73 SE 11) for details of RCHME survey in the area. (9) |