Find Spot record MDO8665 - Palaeolithic hand axes found at Mill Plain, Christchurch

Lower Palaeolithic handaxes, 1 roughout, 6 retouched flakes, 5 flakes, 1 lithic implement and Neolithic arrowheads, axes, flakes and cores were found at gravel workings at Mill Plain. Mill Plain lies on the south-east side of Lower Close and is bounded by Mill Road, Fairmile Road and the railway. Bronze Age knives arrowheads and pottery as well as Iron age pottery and brooch have also been found. Romano-British artefacts including coins, pottery, quern, brooch and an urn containing a cremation have all been discovered in the gravel working site. The geology in the area consists of Terrace 2 or Terrace 4.

(Area SZ 154935) Mill Plain lies on the south-east side of Lower Close and is bounded by Mill Road, Fairmile Road and the railway. Gravel was worked here intermittently between 1909 and 1934; most of the finds being in the Druitt collection. These show evidence of occupation during the Bronze Age and of a small settlement throughout the Iron Age(a) Extensive remains of Belgic and RB occupation including many thousands of RB pottery fragments. Palaeolithic - 96 hand axes (Acheulian) Mesolithic - microliths, two flint picks, two transverse arrow-heads. Neolithic - 2 leaf arrowheads, flint axe, a stone axe and many flakes and cores. EBA - base of beaker? found 1914. Barbed and tanged arrowheads (five). Five plano-convex and one oval knife. A perforated hammer-head of quartzite. MBA - Three collared urns and the base of an incense cup, and a food vessel. LBA - Barrel or bucket urn and a food vessel. IA - Numerous sherds of IA 'A', 'B' and 'C' pottery and a Belgic handled beaker containing a bronze fibula. RB - An urn containing adult male cremation, upright in a 5ft deep pit; many other sherds of RB pottery, New Forest and Samian. Other finds include a bronze terret, brooch, rotary querns, and coins of Faustina, Commodus and Magnentius. A 'bannock' of partly carbonised vegetable matter is also recorded (b). (1) This area is now built over. (2)

National Record of the Historic Environment, 458530 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

<1> Calkin, J B, 1951, The Bournemouth Area in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Times, p32-70 (Article in serial). SWX3981.

<1> Woodhouse, W C, Various, Field Investigators Comments WCW, F1 WCW 12-JUL-54 (Unpublished document). SWX3798.

<2> Woodhouse, W C, Various, Field Investigators Comments WCW, F2 WCW 15-JUL-54 (Unpublished document). SWX3798.

<3> Calkin, J B, and Green, J F N, 1949, Palaeoliths and terraces near Bournemouth, p36 (Article in serial). SWX3670.

<4> Calkin, J B, Catalogue of Herbert Druitt's Collection of Local Prehistoric and R-B Antiquities (Index). SWX3966.

<5> Roe, Derek A, 1968, A Gazetteer of British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites, 93 (Monograph). SWX4454.

<6> Wymer, J, 1993, The Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project: the Upper Thames Valley, the Kennet Valley and the Solent drainage system, p 139 (Monograph). SWX4473.

Record last edited

Nov 24 2023 7:14PM