SDO16358 - Brewery Square, Dorchester, Dorset: Phase 2C, 3A & 3B Infrastructure Contract Works. Archaeological Watching Brief

‘Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Peter Gunning & Partners acting on behalf of The Brewery Square Development Company Ltd, to undertake an archaeological watching brief during redevelopment within the environs of the former Eldridge Pope Brewery on the south side of Dorchester, Dorset. The watching brief was carried out as a condition of planning permission as part of a programme of archaeological works, which included a number of previous archaeological investigations prior to earlier phases of the site redevelopment. The site is located near to the centre of modern Dorchester and comprises a broadly triangular eastwest orientated parcel of land covering c. 4.71 hectares. This phase of watching brief was specifically designed to monitor service-trenching work along Pope Street, Maltings Mews to the north of the old brewery buildings, Eldridge Street to the east and a gas pipe trench extending from Prince of Wales Road to the north of Brewery Square. During the course of the watching brief a pit containing a fragment of Sarsen Stone, Neolithic pottery, and undiagnostic struck flints was revealed. Soil samples from the pit were analysed and C14 dating undertaken on a fragment of hazelnut shell which confirmed an Early Neolithic date for the pit. Elsewhere across the site the watching brief recorded extensive ground disturbance dating to the later 19th and 20th centuries. Terracing during this period had removed pre-development soils, leaving made ground directly overlying natural chalk across the majority of the site.’