EDO4001 - Land South-west of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester; evaluation (Trench 54)

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 54 was aligned NW-SE, W of Poundbury Farm. It was positioned to investigate a NE-SW linear soilmark, but no trace of this was recognised. The trench was excavated down on to the top of the natural clay-with-flints subsoil at a depth of 0.65m. A single N-S aligned linear gully (0.79m wide, 0.28m deep) cut the natural and contained 31 pieces of worked flint. It may form part of a field system later than, but on the same alignment as, the Middle-Late Bronze Age rectilinear field system in this area.