EDO4031 - Land North of Middle Farm, Bridport Road, Dorchester; evaluation 1997

In May 1997 Wessex Archaeology undertook an archaeological field evaluation in connection with the proposed development of a parcel of land to the north of Middle Farm, Bridport Road, Dorchester. The evaluation site comprised an area of c. 2 hectares, and was investigated by 12 machine dug trenches (numbered 41-52) totalling 560 square metres or 2.8% of the evaluation area. A uniform sequence of deposits was recorded in all trenches. Topsoil to a maximum depth of 0.33m, sealed a fine brownish-yellow silty clay subsoil varying from 0.18-0.42m in depth. The subsoil sealed natural deposits of clay-with-flints and the chalk bedrock itself was exposed in a machine excavated test pit at a depth of 1.05m below ground level in Trench 41. The only archaeological feature recorded was a N-S aligned linear within trenches 49 and 52, which proved to be an extant field boundary on the 1995 1:2500 OS map. The evaluation revealed no features of prehistoric date, although Neolithic and Bronze Age worked flint and ten sherds of later Bronze Age pottery were recovered from the topsoil and subsoil during machining.