EDO5001 - Magistrates Court, Bargates, Christchurch; evaluation 2005 (Trench 3)

Wessex Archaeology were commissioned by Dr. A. F. Somerville Ford to carry out an archaeological evaluation of the site of the Magistrates Court, Bargates, Christchurch in advance of the extension of the car park. The evaluation comprised the machining of 40m of trenches. Trench 3 in the eastern part of the site contained four postholes cutting the valley gravel, one of which [305] was sealed below the subsoil deposit [313]. Another was cut by a modern cable trench. The post-holes were generally c. 0.3-0.5m in diameter and 0.07-0.21m deep with moderate to steep concave sides and shallow, concave bases. The fills of all postholes comprised a compacted mid-greyish-brown fine silty sand, with sparse sub-angular flint (<30mm). No finds were recorded from the postholes. No discernable pattern indicative of function could be seen. A single unstratified mesolithic bladelet core made from a gravel cobble was recovered from the overburden.