EDO4407 - Lee Motors Extension, Bowling Alley Walk, Dorchester; excavation 1955

The extension of the premises of Lee Motors Ltd, in the angle between Trinity Street and Bowling Alley Walk during 1955, was watched for the RCHM. A small consequent excavation was also undertaken by the RCHM. For the first time an adequate series of Samian and Coarse pottery was recovered from the make-up of the bank and the soil beneath it, suggesting that the bank was not constructed before AD 140 [1]. Two partial cross sections and an axial section of the rampart were recorded [2]. The later excavation disclosed a metalled road, 10ft wide and 14 ins thick, made of flints and thinlayers of chalk laid in a cutting in the natural chalk. This feature was earlier than the rampart, since it lay beneath it and nearly on the same axis. It seems therefore to conform with what is known of the street-plan of Roman Dorchester [1].