MMO1836 - Medieval lynchets west of Westcott Farm (Monument)

Lynchets and banks forming small square enclosures with one small enough to suggest a building. [1-3] A number of well defined curvilinear lynchets were mapped from aerial photographs. Centred at SS 8515 4692, three separate lynchets are visible as earthworks in fields on either side of the track leading to Westcott Farm, Porlock. The southernmost, at SS 8514 4688 measures approximately 295 metres long and is overlain by an extant field boundary. At SS 8513 4698, a more curvilinear lynchet is visible measuring 130 metres long. The northernmost lynchet at SS 8515 4705 measures 145 metres. All three earthworks run approximately east to west, and are overlain by a post-medieval catchwater meadow (MSO7975). The lynchets are not depicted on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1889 and are most likely date to the medieval period. The lynchets to the northwest of Westcott Farm were thought to be part of a post-medieval water meadow mapped during the Severn Estuary RCZAS (MSO7975). [2,4-5] The lynchet described above as "the southernmost" is not overlain by the water meadow and is situated to the south and west of Westcott Farm. This medieval or post-medieval feature curves around the hill, in a similar way to extant boundaries, between SS 8501 4687 and SS 8529 4676. [6] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [7]