EDO3967 - Land South-west of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester; evaluation (Trench 20)

Wessex Archaeology undertook an archaeological trial trench evaluation on an area of land to the southwest of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester, Dorset, which formed part of the proposed Phase II Poundbury development. The archaeological evaluation, consisting of 65 machine-excavated trial trenches (1.76% of the site), was undertaken during two periods in February and April 2001. The trenches were located in order to investigate cropmarks, as well as providing a good general coverage of the evaluation area. A few later trenches were positioned to investigate further salient archaeological features. All trenches were excavated by machine to the top of the archaeology or natural deposits and measured approximately 30m x 1.8m. Trench 20 was aligned NE-SW, SW of Poundbury Farm and was positioned to confirm the existence of a post-medieval chalk pit. It was excavated to a depth of 0.42m on to natural clay-with flints subsoil at the SW end of the trench. Over half the trench contained a post-medieval rubbish pit extending to a depth of at least 1.2, which filled the chalk pit.