EDO4016 - Land to the West of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester; Excavation Trench 3

Wessex Archaeology undertook an archaeological excavation on land to the west of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester, Dorset in August 2001, part of the proposed Phase II Poundbury development. Three trenches were excavated, targeting archaeological remains discovered during an earlier phase of archaeological evaluation. Trench 3 was located over a large Bronze Age pit revealed in Evaluation Trench 12. A 12m x 12m area was opened up around the known feature. This revealed, in addition, a NE-SW aligned ditch; a small roughly oval feature, possibly a small tree throw; and a large pit (6.5m x 5.7m) at the south of the trench. Fragments of Bronze Age pottery and worked flint were recovered from the fill of the ditch and seems to represent further evidence of the field systems in the form of a shallow linear ditch. The large pit roughly 6 m in diameter with contained a quantity of struck flint and a single sherd of Early to Middle Iron Age pottery. This was most likely to be a chalk quarry with the extracted material being used to marl the surrounding field systems.