SDO12439 - Picket Farm, Picket Lane, South Perrott. Report on an Archaeological Fieldwalking Exercise and Evaluation, and an Assessment of the results.

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Videotext Communications Ltd to undertake a programme of archaeological recording and post-excavation work on an archaeological evaluation undertaken by Channel 4's 'Time Team' at Picket Farm, Picket Lane, South Perrott, Dorset, centred on NGR 347070 105300 (Figure 1). Picket Farm lies 1 km south of South Perrott, a small village some 4km north of the small town of Beaminster in Dorset. The presence of archaeological remains on the Site was first established through the activities of two local metal detectorists. They found a significant concentration of Roman coins associated with a few fragments of pottery. They reported their finds to the local Finds Liaison Officer, Ciorstaidh Trevarthen-Hayward [sic]. On the basis of these finds, and the hilltop location of the Site, it was suggested that the distribution of coins might indicate the presence of a Roman temple. A fieldwalking exercise undertaken as part of the project recovered small quantities of prehistoric, Roman and medieval pottery and prehistoric worked flint, with much larger quantities of Post-medieval pottery and ceramic building material. None of these appeared to show any significant concentrations. A small-scale metal detector survey undertaken in the area of the known concentration of metalwork revealed the presence of a small number of Roman coins. Geophysical survey using a gradiometer undertaken on the Site identified a number of anomalies amongst which was a roughly oval enclosure. On the basis of these results four trenches were excavated, with the two largest focussing on the ovoid enclosure. Sample excavation demonstrated that this was probably Late Neolithic in date, and that it had remained a focus for ritual activity into the Early Bronze Age - dumps of material in the partially silted ditch included a dump of charcoal (C14 dated to 1880 - 1680 BC calibrated) and a mixed dump of pottery (predominantly Collared Urn) and worked flint (including 18 retouched tools) in two interventions in the southern arc of the ditch. The excavations suggest that the ditch of this monument may have been dug segmentally - evidence for this was identified in one intervention in the form of the terminus of one of these sections, whilst different depositional sequences around the circuit suggest that different segments were open at different times. The material removed from this circuit may have been mounded up to form a central bank - both the resistance survey and the excavation of a slot across the modern hedge bank suggested the presence of remnant mound material. There were few internal features of note, and no sign that the monument acted as a funerary monument. The Site also appears to have been the focus of ritual activity in the Roman period, with the concentration of coins found by the metal detectorists apparently associated with the eastern side of the monument. Three Roman coins were recovered in situ within the trenches, all apparently placed in the base of a small purpose dug scoop. These were probably votive offerings. Two large irregular pits to the west of the ring ditch, possibly dug as quarry pits, may point to the mound being enhanced in the Roman period. There are a number of parallels known for Roman ritual re-use of earlier monuments. These range from the deposition of artefacts in a similar fashion to those recovered at South Perrott to the construction of a Romano-Celtic shrine directly on top of a barrow at Haddenham (Hall and Coles, 1994, 114). The ring ditch and mound were probably extant into the Post-medieval period - it seems no coincidence that is lies on the boundary between two fields, whilst the absence of any medieval or Post-medieval finds from the area of the ring ditch suggests that the mound was intact at this time, and only ploughed out subsequently. In view of the significance of the results of this work, it is recommended that a programme of further analysis be undertaken with a view to the publication of a short article outlining the results of this investigation in an appropriate journal. This should provide the background to the project, a summary of the main findings, and a concluding discussion. Plans, sections and photographs may be used to provide illustrative accompaniment to the text as appropriate. The Site data contained within this assessment should be used to form the basis of the structural report.