Monument record MDO5544 - Iron Age settlement, Gussage All Saints

An Iron Age settlement and associated field system are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs. The features were digitally plotted by the Dorset Stour NMP project. Iron Age settlement and enclosure, listed by RCHME as Gussage All Saints 20, and initially identified by air photography. The site was totally excavated in 1972, partly due to the erosion being caused by ploughing but primarily to review the evidence for Iron Age settlement provided by Bersu's 1938-9 excavation of Little Woodbury. The site was occupied throughout the second half of the 1st millennium BC and into the early decades of the Roman period. The enclosure ditch, irregular and asymmetrical, measured 120 metres north-south and 100 metres east-west internally. There appears to have been an external bank. The main entrance was to the east, and featured timber structures and was approached by "antennae" ditches which presented a funnel-like approach to the enclosure. Three main phases of occupation were identified. During the third phase, the ditch seems not to have been maintained as a physical barrier. Occupation in the first phase was represented largely by pits, post holes and some four-post structures. No round houses were identified. In the second phase, the pits and postholes were accompanied by one definite and one possible round house. The third phase saw the construction of several smaller enclosed areas, some of which may have contained timber buildings, though no clear patterning was visible among postholes and other features. The site produced a considerable assemblage of pottery from all 3 phases. Bronze and iron working occurred in all phases. An iron furnace belonging to the early Roman period was found. The most notable metalwork deposit however was from a single pit close to the site's main entrance, and dating to the 1st century BC. It comprised a large assemblage of mould and metalworking debris arising from the production of harness and chariot fittings. Remains of over 50 individuals were found, mostly from the last phase. An inhumation in a wooden coffin found just outside the main entrance was dated by pottery to the 3rd century AD.

An Iron Age settlement and associated field system to the southwest of Gussage All Saints are visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs (7-9).

The cropmarks suggest a series of irregular enclosures and ditched and banked rectilinear and curvilinear field boundaries and/or trackways, potentially indicating a small contemporary field system. Some longer ditched linear features may represent contemporary or later trackways.

There is one particularly sizeable curvilinear enclosure withan entrance on its southeast side. The enclosure measures around 114m by 121m. An additional sub-circular enclosure approximately 35m in diameter is located within the larger enclosure adjacent to its northeast side. There are numerous pits also visible within the large enclosure. Double ditched features extend in a loose funnel shape away from the possible entrance, possibly indicating a form of Iron Age banjo enclosure.

The features were digitally plotted from aerial photographs by the Dorset Stour NMP project (7-9).

Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/091 RCHME Inventory: Dorset V (East) (Unpublished document). SDO18032.

National Record of the Historic Environment, 210038 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

St Joseph, J K, St Joseph GE 0064 (Aerial Photograph). SDO19341.

Wainwright, G J, and Spratling, M, 1973, The Iron Age settlement of Gussage All Saints (Article in serial). SDO16388.

Wainwright, G J, 1977, A Celtic Farmstead in Southern Britain; Scientific American (Article in serial). SDO16701.

Fell, Vanessa, 1985, Examination of an Iron Age Metalworking File from Gussage All Saints. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 106-178 (Article in serial). SDO20692.

Fell, Vanessa, 1988, Iron Age Metalworking Tools from Gussage All Saints, Dorset. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 73-76 (Article in serial). SDO20693.

Barrett, J, Bradley, R and Green, M, 1991, Landscape, Monuments and Society: the prehistory of Cranborne Chase, 227-242 (Monograph). SDO16633.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1963, Monuments Threatened or Destroyed. A Select List: 1956-1962, 14 (Monograph). SDO12558.

‘GUSSAGE ALL SAINTS. VILLAGE, 780 yds. S. of [ST 99811015] Iron Age settlement, of about 3 acres, of Little Woodbury type. Photographed by J. K. S. St. Joseph; parched grass marks on ground planned later. Previously unrecorded.’

<3> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1973, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1972, 76 (Serial). SDO72.

<4> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 20 (Monograph). SDO129.

‘(20) IRON AGE SETTLEMENT (998101), about 250 ft. above O.D., lies on a gentle N.E. slope near the flat top of the ridge between the Gussage and the Crichel brooks, overlooking the former. The site, which has long been levelled by cultivation, was discovered from the air. During 1972 it was completely excavated (Plate 54) under the direction of Dr. G. J. Wainwright (Antiquity, XLVII (1973), 109–30).
The settlement lies within an enclosure of just under 3. acres, roughly circular in plan except on the N.W. side which is notably irregular. It measures about 400 ft. across overall and is defined by a ditch 6 ft. wide and 4 ft. deep, formerly with an external bank; this earthwork appears to be of two main structural phases. Two pairs of ditches resembling antennae, one pair a replacement of the other, converged on the S.E. entrance and provided a funnelled approach, probably for stock. This entrance had been covered by an elaborate timber gateway which was remodelled at least once. There are faint traces of 'Celtic' fields near the enclosure, particularly along the N.E. side.
Within the enclosure were numerous pits, especially storage pits, gullies, and post-hole structures of a prosperous settlement which appears to have been founded relatively early in the Iron Age and which terminated c. A.D. 80. No major house structures were discovered, but evidence for these may well have been removed by the heavy ploughing which the site has suffered. A circular ditched enclosure, about 100 ft. across and with an entrance on the S.E., lies within and adjoins the main enclosure on the N.E.; it was built in the last few decades before the Roman conquest. Large quantities of domestic rubbish including personal ornaments were found in the pits and ditches, as well as numerous articulated animal skeletons, agricultural implements, grain and seeds. A number of human burials were found, the bodies having been thrown casually into pits and ditches along with domestic rubbish. Industrial debris from a bronze-smith's workshop, where equestrian equipment was made, was found in two pits and an adjacent 'working hollow' just S. of the entrance. Several thousand fragments of clay moulds for decorated terret rings, bridle-bits and linch-pins were recovered, together with crucibles, modelling tools, scrap metal and an ingot.’

<5> Wainwright, G J, 1979, Gussage All Saints. An Iron Age Settlement in Dorset (Monograph). SDO14247.

<6> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1986, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1985, 176-8 (Serial). SDO85.

<7> John Boyden, 29-JUN-76, JRB 3091/17 (SU0010/0012) (Aerial Photograph). SDO15635.

<8> National Monuments Record, 07-APR-89, NMR/4349/8 SU0010/13 (Aerial Photograph). SDO16038.

<9> National Monuments Record, 17-JUL-02, NMR/21704/24 SU0010/37 (Aerial Photograph). SDO16037.

Record last edited

Apr 30 2024 3:52PM