Monument record MDO8097 - Romano British salt boiling site, Charnel, Tyneham

Probable Romano-British salt-boiling site on cliff edge at SY 89867893. Rough circular mound some 12 ft high by 30 yards in diameter with an extension about 15 yards wide running north for 15 yards. It seems to consist largely of unburnt shale, but construction of a concrete pill-box has thrown up burnt shale and several fragments of pebbly briquetage. About 45 yards to the NE at SY 89897897 is another mound which seems to consist of unburnt shale. <2>

Mounds are related features.

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1968, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1967, 146, (R A H Farrar) (Serial). SDO67.

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 613 (Monograph). SDO150.

‘(42) Charnel (SY 87 NE). Occupation Debris, probably from a salt-boiling industry, comes from two mounds at the cliff edge about 50 ft. above sea level ½ m. S. of South Egliston.’

<3> Papworth, M D J, Trust for Wessex Archaeology, 1983, Isle of Purbeck Survey, IOP 177 (Index). SDO147.

Two mounds on a cliff edge. Damaged by the construction of a pillbox. They lie on grassland colonized by low shrubs. 7/7/D

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 455096 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Mar 13 2023 3:06PM