The Smedmore Hill Settlement is an archaeological site about 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 , reduced slightly by ploughing at the north-east edge.'Settlements', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 2, South east (London, 1970), pp. 508-512 British History Online. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
It consists of a block of small enclosures of size , separated by rubble-built banks of height up to , 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 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 wide.
There is an enclosure which is perhaps a paddock, about east of the settlement; its size is about . To the north and north-east of this are lynchets with widths , 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.
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