Ruin Clifford Deserted Medieval Settlement

1 The name cannot be linked to desertion. The depopulation is listed in Rous, but not spoken of by Dugdale. The site lay on the banks of the Stour opposite Clifford Chambers…. There are a few suggestive earthworks and possibly an old road visible to the eye, but the air photograph does not amplify them.
2 Location unknown (U), excellent documentary evidence with period of desertion known.
3 Dugdale records three houses at Ruin Clifford.
4 For a second possible site see PRN 1049.
5 The aerial photogrpah taken by Jim Pickering in 1964 (refSP1952 C) shows earthworks. These seem most readily interpreted as ditches marking a series of small closes although these evidently predate the 1st edition 6″ OS Map of 1887. Virtually no trace of these features was visible on the ground; according to the owners the land floods two or three times a year, and one may suggest that the hundred or so episodes which have taken place since 1964 may have resulted in the ditches being filled gradually by silt. The frequency of flooding would tend to enforce the view that this is not an area where previous settlement would have been likely. The land opposite (east) side of the river (also part of WA 1045) is higher; it is in different ownership and I did not enter it; no archaeological features were obviously visible from the west side of the river.
Severn Trent put a sewage treatment pipe across the site earlier in the year, close to the NW edge of the area shown on the SMR.