EDO3963 - Land South-west of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester; evaluation (Trench 16)

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 16 was aligned NW-SE, S of Poundbury Farm and excavated to a depth of 0.32m on to natural Clay-with-flint subsoil. A multiphase ditch, aligned WNW-ESE, cut the natural in the north part of the trench and contained only worked flint and bone in its fills. A second linear was aligned approximately N-S in the southern part of the trench. Both ditches form part o the Middle-Late Bronze Age field system in this area.