SDO14587 - Little Down, Shaftesbury, Dorset. Detailed Gradiometer Survey Report.

‘A detailed gradiometer survey was conducted over land at Little Down, outside Shaftesbury, Dorset. The project was commissioned by Terence O Rourke on behalf of their client MJ Gleeson Group Plc. with the aim of establishing the presence, or otherwise, and nature of detectable archaeological features on the site ahead of further development in this area. The site comprises of agricultural land directly to the west of Grosvenor Road (A350), 1.5km to the north of Shaftesbury town centre and directly west of Wincombe Business Park, Dorset. The proposed scheme totals 9.5ha and gradiometer survey was undertaken over all accessible parts of the site, a total of 8.7ha. The site occupies a largely flat plot of land which lies on the crest of a hill, which sits at around 225m above Ordnance Datum. The gradiometer survey has demonstrated the presence of anomalies of possible archaeological interest within the survey area, along with signs of past agricultural activity including former field boundaries, ploughing, ephemeral trends and a large amount of ferrous. The former field boundaries identified in the data have been linked to mapped field boundaries recorded on an early 19th century map. A large amount of ferrous responses can be seen throughout the Site, especially seen in the northernmost field. Several trends of varying orientation are visible throughout the survey areas that have been established as being geological in nature. The geophysical survey was undertaken between the 14th and 16th April 2014.’