EDO4565 - Durngate Street, Charles Street & Church Street, Dorchester; observations and recording 1980-1981

A series of watching briefs were conducted by the Central Excavation Unit in the Durngate Street, Charles Street and Church Street area of Dorchester during road improvement works in 1980 and 1981. The first watching brief was carried out during road improvements to Durngate Street, north of Wollaston House in the spring of 1980. it revealed a Roman cobbled surface and wall. Also the Roman street beneath Durngate Street was sectioned. These features were on the south side of Durngate Street, opposite the entrance to Church Street, 10m east of the junction of Durnagte and Charles Streets at a depth of 0.4m. The digging of an access hole to the main sewer running down Durngate Street cut a small length of longitudinal section of the Roman street and make-up that underlies the modern road. The modern road make-up lay directly on the Roman road surface, 0.3m below the modern surface. The watching briefs continued in the autumn of 1980 and the spring of 1981 when road improvement work was undertaken in Charles Street and Church Street respectively. A large build up of post-medieval material was revealed to be underlying Charles Street and the demolished outbuildings alongside Wollaston House. Road widening on the east side of Church Street revealed post-medieval build up below the demolished Womens Institute building on the corner of Durngate Street and Church Street. The cellars of the 19th century building on the corner of Church and High East Streets had removed all archaeological deposits for 25m southwards along Church Street (1). The final phase of work involved moving the boundary wall of the Dorchester Building Guild eastwards by 6 or 7m. The trench for the new wall revealed no further archaeological features (2).