EDO3954 - Land South-west of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester; evaluation (Trench 7)

Wessex Archaeology undertook an archaeological trial trench evaluation on an area of land to the southwest of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester, Dorset, which formed part of the proposed Phase II Poundbury development. The archaeological evaluation, consisting of 65 machine-excavated trial trenches (1.76% of the site), was undertaken during two periods in February and April 2001. The trenches were located in order to investigate cropmarks, as well as providing a good general coverage of the evaluation area. A few later trenches were positioned to investigate further salient archaeological features. All trenches were excavated by machine to the top of the archaeology or natural deposits and measured approximately 30m x 1.8m. Trench 7 was aligned NE-SW, S of Poundbury Farm and excavated to a depth of 0.4m on to natural clay-with-flint subsoil. A single ovoid pit (0.83m x 0.65m) was cut into the natural to a depth of 0.34m. This pit contained 123 sherds of Mid-Late Bronze Age pottery, including Trevisker Ware, and a rubber stone that may have been a deliberate deposit. Two linear ditches also cut the natural, one E-W aligned at the NE end of the trench, and the other N-S aligned at the SW end of the trench. This latter ditch seemed to be the continuation of a ditch recorded in trenches 61 (containing a few sherds of Mid-Late Bronze Age pottery), and 15. The E-W aligned ditch contained several sherds of Mid-Late Bronze Age pottery in its fill. These ditches are to the east of a dry valley and are distinct from ditches to the west of the valley by virtue of a quantity of nodular flint being recovered from their fills. This is probably the result of field clearance and is suggestive of a distinct agrarian function for these fields.