Godsbury Enclosure View all content for Godsbury

Fieldnotes - Visited Late July 2012 Like a lot of prehistoric sites, Godbury lays a forgotten relic of the past. An Iron Age enclosure, it was probably used in cattle breeding as a corral or way station between summer and winter pasture. Whatever it's original purpose, the area is now ploughed up and planted with wheat or peas. Only the old drovers tracks, with their wide hollows remain to indicate what use this rural part of the old west once was. I travelled up to the site by the byway which runs next to it, having skirted the bottom of the hill after visiting Old Hat Barrow. I encountered the tenant farmer at the bottom of the hill and asked a few questions about the area. He seemed mystified as to why I wanted to visit such a place but was happy enough for me to carry on with my exploration so long as I didn't get in the way of the harvest of disturb his birds. He couldn’t tell me anything about the site or the surrounding fields. I asked about Falstone Pond but he reckoned that the pond had dried up years back when the underground aqua fore had been tapped and the water extracted. Seems that this had also reduced parts of the River Bourne to a stream too. Godbury itself was much overgrown with scrub and decaying trees. The perimeter was planted very close with peas and after working my way round half the site, I decided it would be a thankless task to go any further into the enclosure. Defiantly a site that is best visited in the winter months when the vegetation has died back and the earthwork is more visible. I was going to have a look at the barrow on Easton Clump, but after seeing the extent of the vegetation, I decided against it at this time.

Posted by Chance 8th August 2012ce

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