EDO3998 - Land South-west of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester; evaluation (Trench 51)

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 51 was aligned NW-SE, W of Poundbury Farm and was excavated to investigate a NE-SW linear cropmark. The trench was excavated to a depth of 0.46m on to natural clay-with-flints. No trace of the feature represented by the soilmark was found. An irregularly-shaped feature was found to the SE of the line of the soilmark and was interpreted as a possible fire pit. Its fill contained three worked flint flakes.