Beacon Hill, Radnorshire - Royal Commission on the Ancient and ...

AbstractThe <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong> uplands archaeological survey, undertaken in 2008, coversapproximately 17 square kilometres of unenclosed common land in north-east<strong>Radnorshire</strong>. The landscape of rolling hills lies almost entirely between the 300m and550m contours. The survey was conducted by walking regular 30m transects andaimed to identify sites of all periods. A total of 422 sites were recorded, 17 of whichhad been recorded previously in the National Monuments Record.Prehistoric funerary and ritual monuments formed a minor component of thearchaeology, but included the groups of hilltop barrows on <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong> and RhosCrug. The other prehistoric site is a small Iron Age defended enclosure. Short Ditch,an early medieval administrative boundary dated by radiocarbon analysis to the fifthor sixth century, crosses the southern end of the survey area and ends at the head of adeep stream valley. Evidence from later in the medieval period is confined almostentirely to house platforms that can be found close to the boundary of the commonand usually in relatively sheltered positions.Most of the sites discovered in the survey belong to the post-medieval period. Relictfield systems, some possibly of late-medieval date, have been found close to the edgeof the common and in sheltered valleys. Most were disused by the early nineteenthcentury. Abundant evidence was found of ploughing on the open hillsides, probablyrepresenting temporary cultivation, up to an altitude of 460m. Rabbit warrens weredug in several places in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The mostsignificant discoveries, however, were several long field banks spanning entiresections of common, which have been interpreted as the boundaries delineatingsheepwalks – upland grazing land for sheep. Evidence for the division of grazing landamong commoners is found elsewhere in <strong>Radnorshire</strong> but physical boundaries areunusual.The report concludes with recommendations for future recording and research.