EDO4702 - Site of Medieval hospital & later Almshouse dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, Dorchester; field observation 1954

A field survey was conducted at the site of a medieval hospital & later Almshouse dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, by J. Rigg of the Ordnance Survey Archaeological Division on the 1 September 1954. His field notes are recorded on the OS record card as follows. The site of Stonehouse, and Messrs Watt’s Yard and perhaps part of the present vicarage, was occupied soon after the Black Death by a leper called ‘La Maudelayne’, and adjoining it an abode for a privileged hermit.” Mentioned in 1367 as the chapel of St Mary Magdalene. The house 40.0 metres NNE of the Vicarage is Stonehouse and Messrs Watt’s yard. It lies between, and partly east of the two houses. No trace of antiquity was found. [1]