Monument record 0803200000 - Church Hill and West Wycombe Hill, West Wycombe

Detailed earthwork survey carried out between April 2000 and June 2001 by English Heritage identified earthwork remains of a possible field system pre-dating the medieval and post-medieval field system. Lynchets and trackways survived to the northwest, east and south of the hillfort [CAS 02866]. Northwest of the hillfort, the hillside to the north of a low field bank and east of a trackway leading in a northwesterly direction, is terraced by broad cultivation lynchets parallel to the track typically 0.3m high and just 10m apart. These are overlain by a later sinuous woodland boundary, which clearly post-dates the earlier field system and may be medieval in origin.
The slopes to the east of the hilifort are terraced by a series of broad, parallel scarps which were originally the remains of a 'Celtic' field system. At a height of between 0.2m and 2.Om these lynchets are oriented on a roughly north-south axis and curve gently, following the contour of the hill. Two of these scarps display a right-angled turn at the northern end, continuing against the contour, and define the edges of former fields. Other scarps at a much narrower interval of 20m-30m are clearly associated with the cultivation of this slope, but these are likely to be of medieval date, further evidence of which is provided by the presence here of straight, narrow, ridge-and-furrow ploughing.
The south-facing slope of Church Hill hosts a series of terraced scarps. Up to four can be seen, aligned roughly south-west to north-east and 1m in height and are separated by regular intervals of 25m. As elsewhere on Church Hill these appear to have originated as lynchets of an Iron Age or Romano-British field system and occasional sharp angle-changes mark the corners of small fields. Also, as in other instances, there is evidence of ridge-and-furrow of medieval and more recent date, particularly on the low-lying slopes closest to the modem road junction. See report for details (B1-3).
Conservation management plan (B4).
The lynchets are visible in Chiltern Conservation Board LiDAR data.