EDO4078 - Proposed Sports Centre and Cemetery, Poundbury, Dorchester; evaluation 1997

In March 1997 Wessex Archaeology undertook an archaeological field evaluation of three fields between the Bridport Road and Poundbury Road, Dorchester, proposed for development. Forty machine-excavated trenches, plus additional contingency trenches, were investigated. The trenches measured 30m long x 1.6m wide, with an additional 513 square metres located subsequently. All trenches were excavated with a flat bladed bucket through topsoil which lay directly above chalk bedrock in trenches 12, 23, 25, 27, & 32, on the sides of a dry coombe, although a colluvial deposit of up to 0.85m deep occupied the floor of the coombe in trenches 9. 39 and 15. The field evaluation identified a range of archaeological features and deposits across the 16 ha site. These comprised deposits of hillwash in a coombe, a later Bronze Age ditched field system of variable survival, but best preserved in the north of the site, isolated pits of Bronze Age date, a probably Middle Bronze Age enclosed settlement and residual finds of Neolithic, Bronze Age and Roman date. NMR Microfilm Index PRN: 7878.