Monument record MDO8385 - Iron Age and Romano-British settlement and shale working site, Gallows Gore East, Worth Matravers

Uprooting of bushes alongside a stone wall bordering Lander's Quarry field in 1962 revealed Iron Age and Roman pottery, worked shale (including evidence for armlet manufacture), and limited amounts of briquetage.

Iron Age "A" to late Roman settlement, centred at SY 9817 7895, NW of Gallows Gore cottages, with sequence of occupation similar to the settlement further west (SY 97 NE 10). Excavation revealed a thin scatter of flag-stones marking the base of Romano- British occupation of perhaps the 2nd to 4th century. Some stone blocks in association with shale-workers' debris may have been bases for individual lathes. Elsewhere a small storage cist with a paved area adjoining a short length of drystone wall was probably of the 3rd or 4th century. Finds are in the British Museum, Christchurch Museum and in the possession of J B Calkin. <1-6>

<1> Calkin, J B, 1935, Transactions of the South Eastern Union of Scientific Societies, 1935, 30 (Article in serial). SWX4373.

<2> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1948, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1947, 42 (Serial). SDO47.

<3> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1949, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1948, 40-1 (Serial). SDO48.

<4> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1955, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1953, 45-71 (Serial). SDO53.

<5> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1963, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1962, 113 (Serial). SDO62.

<6> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 621 (Monograph). SDO150.

‘(40) GALLOWS GORE, East (SY 97 NE). An Inhumation Burial, Walls, and Occupation Debris, Iron Age 'A' to late Roman, with waste from shale armlet manufacture, have been found since 1931 in Lander's quarry (98177895) N.W. of Gallows Gore Cottages, some 400 yds. E. of (39).

Excavations in the small area remaining unquarried revealed an identical sequence of occupation to that of (39), but without evidence for a pre-Roman shale workshop. No structural features of Iron Age 'A' or 'C' were found, although burnt clay daub and evidence perhaps for leather-working occurred in the 'C' or early Roman level. A thin scatter of flagstones marked the base of Romano-British occupation of perhaps the 2nd to the 4th century. At one point five stone blocks some 6 ft. apart, the largest 2 ft. square and 5 ins. high, were associated with concentrations of shale-workers' debris including worked flints and lathe-tools, shale armlet fragments, and turned cores of class C with a few of class A. These were possibly bases for individual lathes belonging to the primary industry here. Two short lengths of drystone wall here may have served a similar purpose; one of them overlay shale debris of the primary phase. Elsewhere a small storage cist with a paved area adjoining a short length of drystone wall was probably of the 3rd or 4th century. The inhumation, S. of the road (98227875), was of a child in a covered cist of two slabs with a hand-made vessel probably of Iron Age 'A'. Objects are in Christchurch Museum, B.M., and in the possession of Mr. J. B. Calkin. (Dorset Procs. LXIX (1947), 42; LXX (1948), 40–1; LXXV (1953), 45–71; Trans. S.E. Union of Scientific Societies XL (1935), 30; information from Mr. J. B. Calkin.)’

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 456459 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Apr 21 2023 6:38PM