Monument record MDO6043 - Enclosure near Badbury Rings, Shapwick

A feature depicted as a circular earthwork and called a ‘Roman amphitheatre’ on an 18th-century map. This monument was described as a horseshoe-shaped earthwork in 1954 and reported as surviving as a slight earthwork in 1987. Fieldwalking in 1987 recovered a small quantity of pottery, some of Bronze Age and others of Roman date. The enclosure is visible as cropmarks and earthworks on aerial photographs and lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AI&M Project. The record for this monument has been enhanced with support from Wessex Water.

Two mounds ('A' at ST 95390297 and 'B' at ST 95560281), suggesting barrows, are shown but not described. <1-2>

'A' No visible traces on the ground which is at present under crop.

'B' A horseshoe-shaped chalky bank at present under plough, orientated NW-SE, with measurable dimensions of 55.0m NW-SE by 47.0m NE-SW and circa 0.7m high by 10.0m wide, with an internal depression. A bump on the hedge and grass verge of the road suggests that the road has been built upon part of the earthwork. The feature does not conform with any known type of antiquity and the absence of puddled chalk appears to discount it as an old pond. <3>

ST 95580281. Rectangular enclosure with one rounded corner shown on air photo, area 0.2ha. Exceptionally broad ditch or series of re-cuts; apparently integrated with linear ditch extending NE. <4-5>

A C18th map describes the site ('B') at ST 9556 0281 as an amphitheatre and indeed its location is similar to the amphitheatres at Bath, Silchester and Dorchester. Field walking in 1987 gives site 'B' an estimated diameter of 80m. If this site proves then to be an amphitheatre, it raises questions about the status of Vindocladia/Badbury Rings (ST 90 SE 45), the size of which apparently would not warrant an amphitheatre. <10>

A subsequent site record notes: "No visible trace in a field regularly ploughed, in established grass when visited. Ploughed out." Papworth MDJ/TWA 5.2.86

The enclosure is visible as cropmarks and earthworks on aerial photographs <11> and lidar imagery <12> and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AI&M Project. It is a rectilinear banked enclosure (the bank still slightly extant on lidar imagery), with traces of internal and external flanking ditches visible as cropmarks. The internal dimensions are 42m by 33m.

A Middle Bronze Age enclosure at Crab Farm surveyed and excavated in 1987-8 and subject to some further geophysical survey in 1990-1. An interim report on the excavations incorrectly described the site as a Neolithic hengiform monument, while the site had previously attracted attention through the use of the word "amphitheatre" to describe it on 18th century maps. This is probably an indication of the degree of survival of the earthworks at the time. The earliest features noted during the excavations were some shallow interconnecting scoops containing some struck flint. There were also traces of a possible earlier enclosure on a slightly different alignment. A v-shaped flat-bottomed ditch was also located. This had been fully backfilled before it was cut by a pit containing the articulated skeleton of a pregnant ewe. Another pit contained the skeleton of a sheep. Both produced radiocarbon dates in the later 2nd millennium BC. The enclosure itself appears to have been defined by inner and outer ditches up to 15 metres apart, possibly separated by a bank. Deliberate backfilling appears to have been followed by the burial of a pregnant cow, with a radiocarbon date similar to the other two animal burials. All three cluster in the period 1400-1000 BC (calibrated). Later activity is represented by a few Late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman sherds plus a Roman coin (Claudius Gothicus - AD 268-70). <14>

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1808-9, OS 2 Inch, No.53 1808-9 (Map). SDO17576.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1811, Ordnance Survey Map 1 1811 (Map). SWX1626.

<3> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 26-MAR-54 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<4> Bowen, H C, 1990, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke, 45 (Monograph). SWX800.

<5> Bowen, H C, 1991, The Archaeology of Bokerley Dyke: Inventory, 29 (Monograph). SDO14864.

<6> Smith, D, and Papworth, M, 1988, A Possible Roman Amphitheatre near Badbury Rings; Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1987, 129 (Article in serial). SDO19969.

<6> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1988, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1987, 129 (Serial). SDO87.

‘A POSSIBLE ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE NEAR BADBURY RINGS. Attention was drawn to this site by an 18th-century map (DRO D/PKL) which has recently become available for study. It depicts a large circular earthwork near Badbury Rings and describes it as a ‘Roman amphitheatre’.
This site was noted in 1954 (Quinnell) as a horseshoe-shaped earthwork of unknown date and it is still visible although much ploughed down.
Fieldwork was conducted in February 1987 when the field was newly ploughed. A chalk bank 25.0 m wide and 0.5 m high survived on the north and west sides of a circular depression 30.0 m in diameter. Assuming the bank once surrounded the depression, the original diameter of the monument can be estimated as 80.0 m. Fieldwalking recovered seven fragments of pottery all from the chalk bank. These included three sherds of Bronze Age date, two fragments of Romano-British colour-coated ware, a piece of Samian and an abraded sherd probably Romano-British. The earthwork has been truncated on the north-east side by a modern road and the bank is visible in the hedgeline. In September a contour survey was carried out while the field was in stubble.
The site (ST 95560281) lies outside the south-west boundary of the Romano-British settlement identified with Vindocladia (RCHM, 1975, 61) and immediately north-west of the Roman road from Badbury to Dorchester. Such a location would be in keeping with the sites of known amphitheatres such as those at Dorchester and Silchester. A further similarity with Maumbury Rings is indicated by the Bronze Age pottery which might suggest that the earthwork was a modified prehistoric barrow or enclosure.
The little known about Vindocladia indicates that its size would not warrant such a public amentity but if further work proves this to be an amphitheatre it would bring into question the status of the settlement.’

<7> Papworth, M, 1989, A Neolithic Enclosure, Crab Farm, Shapwick. Interim Report. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 1988, 141 (Article in serial). SDO19970.

<7> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1990, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1989, 105 (Serial). SDO89.

<8> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1989, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1988, 141 (Serial). SDO88.

<9> Papworth, M, 1993, 'Excavation and Survey of Bronze Age Sites in the Badbury area, Kingston Lacy Estate'; Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society (Article in serial). SDO17250.

<10> Papworth, M, 1994, Shapwick Parish, Kingston Lacy Estate, Wessex Region (Unpublished document). SDO14228.

An earthwork shown as a “Roman Amphitheatre” on the 1773 map (Woodward, DRO). This map shows an entrance on the south-east side before the road to Shapwick was built across it. Recorded as a horseshoe shaped enclosure by Ordnance Survey (1954). The bank surrounds a central hollow 30m in diameter and 0.4m deep. The north-west part of the bank is no longer visible except where it has been protected from ploughing by the roadside hedge which reveals the bank profile on the north-west and south-east sides. Part excavated in 1988 and found to consist of a bank 60m in external diameter 20m wide and 0.5 high with a ditch on both sides of it. Two trenches across the banks and ditches against the roadside hedge revealed finds dating from the Bronze Age and the Romano-British period. The internal ditch contained the skeleton of a cow and a calf. On the south-east side of the enclosure were found two sheep burials. All of these burials were dated by radiocarbon to approximately 1,000 B.C. The upper fill of the exterior ditch contained pottery and a coin of 3rd century date. The site is thought to be an enclosed settlement of the Middle Bronze Age (Papworth 1992, 56)

<11> J R Boyden, 02-JUL-1976, JRB 3095/6 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18112.

<12> Environment Agency, 16-NOV-2021, LIDAR Environment Agency DTM (Aerial Photograph). SDO18034.

<13> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/091 RCHME Inventory: Dorset V (East) (Unpublished document). SDO18032.

<14> National Record of the Historic Environment (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Nov 8 2024 7:31AM