(Name centred NU03001724) Cultivation Terraces. (1)

'A' Area NU0290 1719
'B' Area NU0328 1724
The north, south and west sides of Heddon Hill are marked by prominent bands of cultivation terraces. They have a level or near-level working width of 6m to 10m. On the less steep slopes of the hill they merge imperceptibly with old rig and furrow ploughing marks, 8m-10m wide, which form part of the extensive medieval and later agricultural pattern of the area. (2)

Condition unchanged. (3)

NU 030173. It is clear that the strip lynchets at Heddon Hill were created by the same ploughing as the riggs, and must be contemporary with them. (4)

NU 0217/21 (NU 0298 1762). Broad ridge-and-furrow survives in good condition at 140 m OD with furrows up to 0.3 m deep.

NU 0217/22 (NU 0297 1760). Narrow ridge-and-furrow at 140 m OD, almost entirely ploughed out, is faintly visible as vegetation marks but not surveyable. The rigs were c 3-5 m wide and orientated parallel to [NU 0217/21].

NU 0217/23 (NU 0270 1735). A large field of broad ridge-and-furrow between 115 and 140 m OD has been ploughed out and is no longer visible.

NU 0217/24-26 (NU 0290 1730). Broad ridge-and-furrow covers the N flank and top of Heddon Hill from 140 to 160 m OD. The main alignment [NU 0217/24 and 26] consists of asymmetrical but fairly regular furrows up to 0.5 m deep. This is apparently overlain by a plot of cross contour rig [NU 0217/25] with regular furrows up to 0.3 m deep. [NU 0217/25] is post-dated by building [NU 0217/40].

NU 0217/27-36 (NU 0290 1710). The S and W faces of Heddon Hill, from 120-160 m OD, are covered by a series of well-developed strip lynchets standing over 5 m high in some cases though averaging c 3 m high. Several of the terraces are subdivided by furrows which have in turn formed subsidiary lynchets. (5a)

NU 0317/1-18 (NU 034 174). An extensive area of broad ridge-and-furrow occupies the summit and the flanks of Heddon Hill, between c110 m OD and c 160 m OD. Until recently the hill was an island of permanent pasture of about 70 hectares surrounded by modern fields ploughed regularly, but more recently parts of the N and NE slopes have been fenced, ploughed and planted [NU 0317/15 and 16, parts of NU 0317/5 and 13, and NU 0217/22], and the rig in these sectors is abraded or obliterated. This is a continuing process; the setting up of fence posts indicates that area NU 0317/14 is the next to be enclosed. But where the land is still pasture, the broad rig is in fine condition. It survives in NU 0317 as cultivation terraces along the contours with lynchets up to 3.0 m high (but more commonly 1.0 m - 1.5 m high); down the slope the furrows are 0.5 m maximum depth, and from 5.0 m to 10.0 m apart. The cross-contour broad rig appears to interfere with the general line of the lynchets, and may be assumed to be later. (The lynchets are numbered NU 0317/1-8, the cross-contour rigs NU 0317/9-15). At [NU 0317/8] there are a number of terraces too vague for survey; there has been quarrying here and possibly some post-rig cultivation. Further quarrying and cattle disturbance at the NE end of [NU 0317/3] has destroyed any trace of broad rig which may have existed. Field [NU 0317/16] has been cultivated for several years and the ridge-and-furrow visible on APs can no longer be identified. It is clear from vegetation marks that medieval cultivation extended S into modern fields [NU 0317/17 and 18], but this too is unsurveyable.

Of the DMV of Heddon, located to NU 034 178 by Godwin (5c), there is now no trace or indeed sufficient space among the rigs either at that grid reference or anywhere else on Heddon Hill. It may originally have been sited on the surrounding lower-lying ground. (5b)

General association with HER 30387 and HER 34388. (5)