EDO4580 - Plume of Feathers, Princes Street, Dorchester; excavation 1975

A site previously occupied by outbuildings of The Plume of Feathers public house, in the junction of Trinity Street and Princes Street, was excavated for the Dorchester Excavation Committee in advance of proposed development. Three trenches with a total area of over 200 sq. m. were dug, revealing a Roman street, water pipe and assorted features, and substantial post-medieval occupation. A trench 16m x 6m was dug at the south of the site, adjoining the area excavated in 1971. A row of substantial post-holes and a pipe trench, interpreted by the excavator as a Roman water pipe trench with iron collars in situ, was found. further north in the same trench an E-W aligned Roman road was identified and interpreted as part of one of the main E-W roads of the Roman town. A flint yard surface adjoined this road to the north. A second trench was dug at the northern end of the site, producing a series of parallel Roman features, with almost no relating stratification. These were; a 'v' shaped gully, a curving wall foundation which cut the gully, and a robbed out wall trench. Above these, in the western part of the trench, lay a series of post-medieval floors, stone walls and post-holes fronting on to Princes' Street. The whole was covered by the destruction layer of 18th century fires. A third trench in the centre of the site revealed top-soil disturbance down to natural chalk and a pair of pit groups containing post-medieval material [1].