EDO5173 - Land to the rear of Harper House, Sherborne School, Hound Street, Sherborne; evaluation 2007 Trench 4

Context One Archaeological Services carried out an archaeological field evaluation on land to the rear of Harper House, Hound Street, Sherborne over six days between the 2nd and 9th January 2007. The work was conducted in advance of proposed redevelopment. The site is located within the historic core of the town and in an area of known medieval settlement. The evaluation was by means of 5 machine cut trenches measuring 4m x 1m. trench 2 contained the possible remains of an E-W aligned wall. Trench 4 revealed evidence of a formalised path associated with a garden visible on the 1887 OS 1st edition map. This path overlay imported garden soils which covered residual gravel deposits. Trench 5 contained an E-W aligned path at its southern end which cannot yet be linked with any garden feature visible on 19th century maps. Trench 4 was aligned NNE-SSW and was excavated to a maximum depth of 1.20m near the western boundary of the site. Topsoil overlay a gravel garden path with platy limestone fragments forming a border along the southern and eastern trench edges. This overlay buried garden soils up to 0.8m deep, which covered possible residual garden path deposits overlying natural sediments. (1)