Details

The monument includes an earthwork enclosure known as a Highworth circle,
located 200m south east of Common Farm.
The enclosure is approximately circular and survives partly as a low earthwork
which includes a ditch surrounded by an outer bank. The remainder of the
circuit is visible on aerial photographs which allows a maximum overall
diameter of 78m to be calculated.
The surface of the raised metalled track which crosses the monument together
with all fence posts and telegraph poles are excluded from the scheduling,
although the ground beneath these features is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Highworth circles are a type of earthwork enclosure found mostly in north east
Wiltshire, with a few outliers north of the Thames in Oxfordshire. Although
they are known as `circles' their form varies from circular or sub-circular,
with diameters of between 40m and 90m, to sub-rectangular. All have a wide
flat bottomed ditch with an external bank. Despite limited fieldwork and
excavation their date remains uncertain. Although sharing characteristics with
henge monuments of Neolithic date, Highworth circles, located almost entirely
within the Hundred of Highworth, may be suggested as being of medieval date,
possibly constructed for stock management. Over 40 examples have been
recorded, many of them reduced by modern cultivation.
All examples exhibiting significant survival of archaeological remains will
normally be identified as nationally important.
Despite being partly levelled by cultivation, the Highworth circle 200m south
east of Common Farm will contain archaeological remains and environmental
evidence relating to the monument and the landscape in which it was
constructed.

Source: Historic England