Monument record MDO8390 - Iron Age/Romano-British occupation and shale working site at Compact Farm, Worth Matravers

Iron Age to late Roman occupation debris, with waste from shale armlet manufacture, comes from about 1/4 mile NE of St. Nicholas' Church at Compact Farm. Excavation for a silage pit revealed a black layer containing fragments of turned shale armlets, waste cores and specialised flint lathe-tools.

SY 97427782. Compact Farm. Occupation debris, Iron Age "A" to late Roman, with waste from shale armlet manufacture, comes from about 1/4 mile NE of St. Nicholas' Church. Excavation for a silage pit revealed a black layer containing fragments of turned shale armlets and waste cores of class `C', specialised flint lathe-tools and other objects with Iron Age sherds on natural limestone beneath.

Unstratified finds here and for about 100 yards N included Iron Age `A' sherds, rough-outs for hand-cut shale armlets, part of a turned shale bowl, a bronze signet-ring, and sherds of at least the 2nd to 4th century AD. Some objects are in the Dorset County and Christchurch Museums. <1-5>

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1955, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1953, 54, 59, 69 (Serial). SDO53.

<2> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1956, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1954, 77 (Serial). SDO54.

<3> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1961, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1960, 86 (Serial). SDO60.

<4> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1965, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1964, 118 (Serial). SDO64.

<5> 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.

‘(41) COMPACT FARM (SY 97 NE). Occupation Debris, Iron Age 'A' to late Roman, with waste from shale armlet manufacture, comes from about ¼ m. N.E. of St. Nicholas' Church. Excavation for a silage pit (97427782) revealed a black layer containing fragments of turned shale armlets and waste cores of class C, specialized flint lathe-tools and other objects, with Iron Age sherds on natural limestone beneath. Unstratified finds here and for about 100 yds. N. included Iron Age 'A' sherds, rough-outs for hand-cut shale armlets, part of a turned shale bowl, a bronze signet-ring, and sherds of at least the 2nd to the 4th century A.D. Some objects are in D.C.M. and Christchurch Museum. (Dorset Procs. LXXV (1953), 54, 59, 69; LXXVI (1954), 77; LXXXII (1960), 86; LXXXVI (1964), 118.)’

<6> Papworth, M D J, Trust for Wessex Archaeology, 1983, Isle of Purbeck Survey, IOP 274 (Index). SDO147.

<7> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1992, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1991, 187-190 (Serial). SDO91.

<8> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1993, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1992, 245-246 (Serial). SDO92.

<9> National Record of the Historic Environment, 456397 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Mar 13 2023 12:57PM