Details

The monument, which lies within two areas, includes medieval settlement
remains located south of Overtown House and Overtown Manor. It occupies the
northern edge of the lower chalk plateau, with views northwards across Swindon
Hill towards the Thames Valley, and southwards towards the northern scarp of
the upper chalk on the Marlborough Downs.
The greater part of the monument lies to the south of Overtown House. Its
principal feature is a clearly defined main street in the form of a hollow
way, running for a distance of 200m on a north west-south east alignment.
There are also indications of further streets running off at right angles from
the hollow way. The street, which is up to 1.25m deep, is flanked by numerous
house platforms surviving as earthworks ranging up to 1.5m in height.
The monument extends westwards into a paddock south of Overton Manor, where
the earthworks of further house platforms are visible. These earthworks extend
south towards Parsloes' Farm, and stand to a height of approximately 1m.
All water troughs, telegraph poles and fenceposts 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.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Medieval rural settlements in England were marked by great regional diversity
in form, size and type, and the protection of their archaeological remains
needs to take these differences into account. To do this, England has been
divided into three broad Provinces on the basis of each area's distinctive
mixture of nucleated and dispersed settlements. These can be further divided
into sub-Provinces and local regions, possessing characteristics which have
gradually evolved during the past 1500 years or more.
This monument lies in the East Wessex sub-Province of the south-eastern
Province, an area in which settlement characteristics are shaped by strong
contrasts in terrain. This is seen in the division between the chalk Downs,
where chains of nucleated settlements concentrate in the valleys, and the
Hampshire Basin, still dominated by the woodlands and open commons of the
ancient New Forest, where nucleated sites are largely absent. Along the
coastal strip extending into Sussex are more nucleations, while in Hampshire
some coastal areas and inland valleys are marked by high densities of
dispersed settlement, much of it post-medieval.
The Berkshire Downs and Marlborough Downs local region is characterised by
extremely low densities of dispersed settlements on the downland, with
villages and dense `strings' of hamlets and farmsteads in the well-watered
valleys. Modern settlements are interspersed with the earthworks of abandoned
medieval settlement sites.

The medieval settlement remains at Overtown are a well preserved and rare
example of a medieval settlement surviving as an earthwork on the Wiltshire
chalkland.

Source: Historic England