The History of Charney Bassett

There is a Prehistoric Ring Ditch in the field to the north of the Lyford Road. A Ring Ditch is a trench cut into bedrock. They are usually identified through aerial photography either as soil marks or crop marks. When excavated, ring ditches are usually found to be the ploughed‐out remains of a round barrow (burial place) where the barrow mound has completely disappeared, leaving only the infilled former quarry ditch.

The term is most often used as a generic description in cases where there is no clear evidence for the function of the site: for instance where it has been ploughed flat and is known only as a cropmark or a geophysical anomaly. The two most frequent monument types represented by ring ditches are roundhouses (where the ‘ditch’ is actually a foundation slot) and round barrows. The term is not normally used for larger features than these. Larger features would instead be described as ‘circular enclosures’. The square attached to the ring may be an enclosure of some sort but this is only supposition. It is interesting to note that is on the highest part of the fields (‘hill’) which are themselves almost entirely surrounded by watercourses.

It is very difficult to date it, but could be from the Iron Age (750 BC to 42 AD),

This image has been added to the Historical Environment Record.

Another two ring ditches and other possible features appear just outside the village to the north of Buckland Road.

There are two Bronze Age Barrows (On slight ridge-1 mile NW of village ) north of Buckland Road. They are described as ‘two small mounds about 300m apart 5-6m in diameter and 1-1.5m high with trees growing on both’ and are clearly visible from the bridle track. They are dated as 2350BC – 701BC.

Just to the south of Buckland Road:

Cited as ‘a group of pits is visible … in Aerial Photographs of c.1960 as dense swathes of pits. Pit 4000BC – 42AD. This and nearby enclosures (PRN 12078) seem to indicate dense prehistoric settlement’,

and just over the road to the north:

‘Dense Prehistoric Settlement Traces of rectilinear enclosures are visible on … Aerial Photographs. Enclosures and pits (see PRN 12077) seem to be indicative of a dense settlement, visible on earlier Aerial Photographs (c.1960). Settlement 4000BC – 42AD.’

See also the article by R Hingley under the ‘Cherbury Camp’ section which contains a sketch of an ‘open settlement’ 500m to the south west of Cherbury Camp.

Cited as ‘Roman Enclosure and pottery surface scatter of Romano/British pottery over a small area with dateable sherds suggesting a C4th date for the enclosure’.

Historic England record it as Monument No. 229468: 

Pentagonal enclosure, with two-three attached huts or smaller enclosures, and trackway. Romano/British sherds found to NW. – A small Prehistoric or Roman settlement, mapped from good quality aerial photographs. Of the five enclosures identified (TG.16.18.1, TG.16.18.3, TG.16.18.6-8), TG.16.18.1 is the main enclosure. It is a five-sided polygonal enclosure, 52 m by 50 m, defined by a single ditch and with an east-facing entrance. The other four enclosures are all rectilinear and small, with a maximum dimension of 13 m. All four enclosures, plus the two hut circles mapped (TG.16.18.4-5) are internally or externally attached to the main five-sided enclosure, with the exception of the hut circle TG.16.18.4, which is free-standing within it. The diameters of the two hut circles are 7 m and 11 m respectively. A short length of ditch (TG.16.18.2) and eight small round pits (TG.16.18.9) are also associated with the settlement. Additionally the enclosure TG.16.18.6 contains an internal pit.

Cited as ‘two adjacent square enclosures are visible as light soil marks on vertical Aerial Photographs. Moat 1066 – 1539’. This is given as south of the village to the east of Bagmere Barn at SU 3791 9406.