EDO1207 - Iron Age site, Sleight, Corfe Mullen

"An Iron Age "A" site at Sleight, Corfe Mullen On the N.E. side of the main road at Sleight, Corfe Mullen, and only half a mile from the Railway Ballast Hole, famous for its 1st century Roman kiln and an important series of palaeoliths, a large area of gravel was removed at SY 985981 in the 1920s and 1930s. In the summer of 1929 the gravel diggers exposed a small pit containing a quantity of pottery. On August 17th the late Lt.-Col. C.D. Drew visited the site and made a rough sketch of the section. This shows a pit 4ft. Wide at the mouth, and penetrating the gravel to a depth of about 2ft. 8in. His sketch indicates that the pottery was found in the lower two-thirds together with charcoal and burnt stones near the bottom. The present writer [J B Calkin] visited the site shortly afterwards, and obtained more pottery from the pit. The workmen were instructed to keep a sharp look-out for similar finds, with a result that within the next two and a half years seven more pits were recorded, though they were more in the nature of small pockets and except in one case (pit 3) they only contained a few sherds. These however, sufficed to link all the pits with the first one. During several years following nothing more was recorded and the site seems to have been worked out." (1)