Nettlecombe Tout

Nearest town:
Bere Regis (13km ESE)
OS reference:
ST736033
OS sheet:
194
Latitude:
50° 49' 40.93 N
Longitude:
2° 22' 29.58 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Nettlecombe Tout (Hillfort) by formicaant

The north end of the rampart, it makes a slight turn to the west at this point.

Image credit: Mike Rowland 18/09/2007.
formicaant
formicaant Sep 18, 2007

Articles

Nettlecombe Tout

formicaant
formicaant Sep 18, 2007

This is not a double bank as I put in my miscellaneous entry, but a large single rampart with a deep ditch on its east side. The rampart is about twenty feet in height and at its deepest the ditch is ten feet deep. It is about 250 yards long and is to the west of a complex of cross dykes and ancient sunken trackways. To the northeast Rawlesbury castle can be seen and views across the landscape must stretch to many tens of miles.
I wanted to visit the Dorsetshire gap which is just below to the east, but chickened out when I saw the field leading to it was full of young steers. This will have to wait for another day.

Miscellaneous

Nettlecombe Tout
Hillfort
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Sep 19, 2007

Nettlecombe Tout gets a quick mention in Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”:

If Tess were made rich by marrying a gentleman, would she have money enough to buy a spy-glass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as Nettlecombe Tout?
..

“Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?”
“Yes.”
“All like ours?”
“I don’t know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound – a few blighted.”
“Which do we live on – a splendid one or a blighted one?”
“A blighted one.”

Miscellaneous

Nettlecombe Tout
Hillfort
formicaant
formicaant May 15, 2007

A promontory hillfort in one of the more remote spots in Dorset. Close by is the Dorsetshire gap, a meeting place of five ancient trackways. The hillfort is formed by a double bank and ditch cutting across the hill called Nettlecombe Tout, leaving a twenty acre hillfort at the end.

Sites within 20km of Nettlecombe Tout

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