EDO3980 - Land South-west of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester; evaluation (Trench 33)

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 33 was aligned NW-SE, S of Poundbury Farm and west of Middle Farm, and excavated to a depth of 1m on to natural clay-with-flint subsoil. Colluvial deposits filled a relict dry valley in the entire trench to a depth of up to 1m. An E-W aligned ditch (1.45m wide, 0.55m deep) cut the natural and was sealed by the colluvium in the middle of the trench. Also, a N-S aligned gully cut the natural and was sealed by the colluvium at the NW end of the trench. Both linears are probably part of the Middle-Late Bronze Age field system in this area.