202511
YARNFIELD GATE
MEDIEVAL DESERTED SETTLEMENT 1066 to 1540
MEDIEVAL ENCLOSURE 1066 to 1540
ST 779384. Deserted settlement evidenced by a number of earthworks, enclosures and building platforms.
At ST 779384 in the district of Yarnfield is an area of desertion on the bottom and south western side of a re-entrant within a pasture field of ten acres.
There is one well preserved road and perhaps ten crofts, some with slight building platforms. Generally the earthworks are from 0.3m to 0.5m high. Surveyed at 1:2500.
Yarnfield and Maiden Bradley were part of Somerset until a century ago and the following supplementary information has been produced by the County Records Office:-
Yarnfield is in the Domesday Book as Gemefelle and had 5 bordars, 1 serf, 2 cows, 25 swine, 124 sheep, 20 acres of pasture and 60 acres of woodland. In 1227 the leper hospital at Maiden Bradley was enclosed with the manors of Maiden Bradley and Jernefeld. At the Dissolution both manors came to Sir Edward Seymour and are today held by the Duke of Somerset.
Yarnfield is described in various ways but cannot be elevated to village status. In 1226 it is called a tithing; in 1256 a vill and
there are 14 and 15 century references to single messuages and lands being granted to Maiden Bradley Priory. In 1233 by agreement between the Prior of Witham Friary and Maiden Bradley "all the men of Cernefield" were excused suit to the hundred court and pleas and amercements pertaining to the hundred.
There is no reference to any church or chapel in the Bath and Wells Registers. (1)
DMV centred: ST 77923835. A further 2 ha of desertion lie on the east side of the re-entrant, giving a total of 6 ha. Four possible building platforms, and associated scarps, from 1.0m to 2.0m high defining possible crofts, can be identified. No surface finds. The whole site is well preserved, and remains under pasture.
Surveyed at 1:2500 on AM. (2)
The medieval earthworks at Yarnfield Gate were surveyed by staff of the RCHME Salisbury office as part of a project focusing on the earthworks of South Wiltshire. The following is abstracted from the archive report:
The earthworks are located on Upper Greensand in two adjacent fields on either side of a small valley and separated by a holloway running down the valley bottom, now used as a track. The surveyed earthworks represent the remains of a number of properties of varying form and dimension, arranged as an irregular interrupted row along the holloway which forks towards the N end of the surveyed area. The settlement earthworks N of the fork cluster alongside the S-most, higher hollow, avoiding the marshy area traversed by the N continuation of the track. The irregular layout of this settlement and its location within an area of historic woodland point to its origin as an area of assart, evidently along a pre-existing track through the wood and possibly overlying earlier, probably prehistoric, fields. However, it is also plausible that the irregularity of shape and size demonstrated by the properties is suggestive of piecemeal clearance and enclosure, an historic process recorded in the documentary evidence for the area. The process at Yarnfield has been circumscribed by the presence of the two routes across the forest which evidently pre-date the settlement. A full description of the surveyed earthworks and a summary of the known history of the site can be found in the archive report. (3)
31-01-14