EDO5014 - Sewage Pipe, North Square, Dorchester

Emergency repairs to a sewer pipe necessitated the digging of a trench on the west side of North Square, Dorchester. Brief observations by Peter Bellamy from outside the safety fence revealed that the pre-urban soil layer still survived across this area where it had not been disturbed by services. Directly overlying this brown clay soil was a thin chalk layer or surface c. 0.1m thick beneath a similar thickness of what appeared to be a yellowish-brown stony clay layer, sealed by modern deposits. This surface and the overlying layer are probably Roman in date, but it is unclear what they represent.