MSO8022 - Medieval or post-medieval deserted farmstead of Mene (Monument)

The remains of the medieval or early post-medieval deserted farmstead of Mene are visible as a building platform within a stone banked enclosure. The only extant building on the site is a post-medieval barn with a stone lined spring.

A good example of a deserted farmstead with earthworks and remains of stone buildings at Mene, Selworthy, SS 916 483. Dated back perhaps to the 15th or 16th Centuries. (The map reference falls at a valley head, where no evidence of the sort described is visible on Ordnance Survey aerial photographs. Possibly the map reference should be SS 926 488, where the ruins of a farm called West Myne are clearly shown on the 1974 Ordnance Survey 1:10,000 map [1, 2] Extensive earthworks of ruined buildings below a number of springs. [3] SS 916 483 Deserted farmstead of Mene. This is shown as a separate estate in 1841 but with only a barn on the farm site. The site lies on a north facing slope where a number of springs emerge. There is a large area of stone and foundations within a squarish, il defined enclosure. The site was bulldozed and destroyed in 1977 (M Aston, fieldwork 19th January and 14th July 1977). This is one of three candidates for the deserted site of Myne, mentioned in Domesday (see also MSO7585 and MMO215). [4-6] A further candidate for Mene or Myne is recorded as MSO7648. [7] Centred at SS 91686 48308 are the very poorly preserved remains of a deserted farmstead. Several episodes have confused the remains. Firstly the bulldozing episode refered to by M. Aston [5]. Secondly the dumping of World War Two date and other material on the site during land improvement after the war. Thirdly the presence of a later phase - the construction of the barn and a stone lined spring. Fourthly, animal erosion on the site. The remains of the farmstead comprise one building platform measuring 15 metres by 7.5 metres, which is cut into the hillslope at its southern end by 1.6 metres. The platform lies within the remains of a stone banked enclosure, largely destroyed (perhaps bulldozed) on the south and east, but discernible as a good field bank 0.5 metres high on the north. The most likely interpretation of this site is that it represents a small farmstead of medieval or early post-medieval date, which later failed and became only a barn with stone lined spring by the time of the Tithe Map of 1841 [4]. [11] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [13]