More information : SD 6478 (GCE). Elements of a well-preserved coaxial field system survive in unimproved pasture at High Park in Lancashire, on the east side of the Lune valley, and continue to the north into the adjacent part of Cumbria. Parts of at least ten parallel, linear, field boundaries survive as stony banks and/or lynchets, oriented broadly east to west, and spaced c 90m to 120m apart; several also appear to have tracks running to one side. At High Park, the longest boundary now commences just east of Threepenny Bit Wood, and runs as an earthwork for at least 630m to the west as far as the edge of Tithe Wood South; at the eastern end its alignment is continued by a modern field wall, and it is thus possible that it formerly commenced as much as 170m further east on the edge of the deeply-downcut valley of the Leck Beck. The eastern terminals of other boundaries, however, especially those to the north, seem to lie approximately along the valley of the Eller Beck. Only very short stretches of boundaries at the very northern and southern edges of the system survive, for these are bounded by areas of modern improved pasture. It is unclear how much larger the system would originally have been.
There are indications that Bronze Age barrows (SD 67 NW 7 and 23-25) on the watershed between the Eller and Leck Becks may have served as sight marks for several of the linear boundaries, whilst another (SD 67 NW 26) has been incorporated into a cross-boundary running between two of the linears. Hence the field system is later than the barrows. It is also apparent that a number of Iron Age/Romano-British settlement complexes (SD 67 NW 58, 84 and 91) overlie the linear boundaries, and so provide a terminus ante quem. The system is most likely to be late Iron Age/Romano-British in date.
Parts of the coaxial system lie within the area of scheduled ancient monuments Cumbria 116 and Lancashire 136f and g (1a, 1b): some of the individual boundaries had been recognised and planned by Lowndes in 1961-2 (1c), with more plotted from APs by Higham in 1979 (1d), but the true extent and coaxial nature of the system had not been appreciated before it was surveyed by the RCHME.
Transcribed from APs and/or surveyed at 1:2500 scale as part of the RCHME High Park/Cow Close Survey (features FS2/CB1-CB10). See report (1e) and plans in the NMR for more details. (1)
Scheduled. (2)
An extensive Iron Age/Roman coaxial field system is visible as earthworks on air photographs and lidar, at SD 6407 7827. The system consists of embanked field boundaries. The long axes of the system are aligned northeast-southwest. Hollow ways follow the course of some of these long axes before turning towards the numerous settlement sites. The features are extant on the latest 2012 aerial photography and 2009 lidar. (3) |