EDO4892 - Kings Arms Hotel, Christchurch; evaluation Trench 2

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by South Dorset Developments Ltd to undertake an archaeological evaluation on land to the rear of the Kings Arms Hotel, Christchurch, Dorset, prior to the end of September 2006. Four evaluation trenches, each 10m in length, were excavated, however due to discoveries on site and advice following a DCC monitoring visit, their layouts and extents were altered. Archaeological features were present in two of these trenches, dating to the post-medieval and modern period and containing no material of real archaeological significance. The area had previously been distrubed by levelling, specifically ground raising, and the canalisation of the river, now the millstream. The front, or supposed street frontage, of the site had been severely truncated by the insertion of modern services. The two trenches to the rear of the property were excavated to a depth of 2m and encountered made ground deposits to their full depth. Trench 1 was extended to ascertain whether this sequence of made ground continued and this was found to be the case. All trenches were machine excavated to the top of the archaeological horizons or the natural, which ever were encountered first. Identified archaeological remains were excavated by hand. Trench 2 was aligned N-S down the centre of the hotel car park and contained made ground, for the raising of ground levels wets of the river, to a depth of 2m. Pottery from these deposits dated from the 17th-20th centuries. Below these deposits was a lyer of river-laid silty sand containing 17th-18th century pottery at the top and with a series of large wooden posts sunk in to it to a depth of 2.8m below ground level. They could not be excavated due to waterlogging but one was removed for further analysis. Above the made ground layers a cobbled surface may be contemporary with the modern wall in trench 1.