EDO4653 - Dorchester Building Guild, Church Street, Dorchester; excavation 1986

The Central Excavation Unit undertook a programme of archaeological excavation and recording on the site of the former Dorchester Building Guild, Church Street between 1979 and 1986 prior to redevelopment of the demolished buildings. It was associated with the widening of Church Street and the development of the former Egg Packing Station. Several parts of the investigated area were heavily disturbed by concrete rafts dug in excess of 3m into the natural chalk for electricity generating machinery. The watching brief work was governed by the nature of the contractors work. In some cases all that was possible was the observation of a machine dug trench. In other areas it was possible to excavate in advance of groundworks and some trial trenching was undertaken using a mini-excavator with a 2ft bucket [1]. The site records are conflated with those of the excavation at the egg packing station in 1982 (EDO4560) and the watching brief during the road widening of Church street, Durngate street and Charles Street (EDO4505) and it is difficult to be sure when the watching brief at the Dorchester Building Guild took place and how many, or where, trial trenches were dug during the evaluation. However, a limited programme of trial trenching took place at the Dorchester Building Guild and WI hall, surrounding the egg packing site, between 10th-16th February 1986. One archaeological feature was recorded in Trench 3, south of the concrete raft on the site of the WI building. This was a flint filled gully, 0.45m deep, 0.6m wide and aligned approximately N-S. It may be prehistoric in origin. This gully was cut by a large post-medieval pit at its southern end. Trench 6 revealed the eastern edge of a large circular Roman pit. At the northern end of the site a trench was located to explore the line of neolithic post-pits discovered at Greyhound Yard and the Egg Packing Station. Three further complete pits and 2 partial ones were revealed. A watching brief also took place during the clearance of the footprint for the new building down to chalk bedrock [2].