Smedmore Hill Settlement

The Smedmore Hill Settlement is an archaeological site about 2 mi south-west of Corfe Castle, in Dorset, England. The site is a settlement and an associated field system, dating from the Iron Age and Romano-British period. It is a scheduled monument, described in the list entry as "a rare and well preserved example of its class".

Description
The site is regarded as a settlement occupied by a group of subsistence farmers during the Romano-British period. It is on the northern slope of Smedmore Hill, a limestone ridge; its total area is about 1.2 ha, reduced slightly by ploughing at the north-east edge.

It consists of a block of small enclosures of size 0.02 to 0.08 ha, separated by rubble-built banks of height up to 0.45 m, each one levelled using limestone rubble, so that the enclosures are terraced into the hillside. Around the edge of the settlement are traces of a bank, up to 0.9 m high, on the south, south-west and south-east; four gaps in the bank are thought to be entrances. There are inward-turning banks, perhaps to direct livestock into the settlement, by the western entrance where there is a gap 35 m wide.

There is an enclosure which is perhaps a paddock, about 150 m east of the settlement; its size is about 92 by. To the north and north-east of this are lynchets with widths 18 to 30 m, probably used for cultivation. There was investigation in 1956 on the east side of the settlement, during construction of a water pipe trench. Finds included pottery of the Iron Age and Romano-British period, including Samian ware.