EDO5365 - Gillingham Relief Road, Gillingham; excavation 1990

Following an archaeological trench evaluation of the Gillingham relief Road and in view of the potential importance of the site, further excavation, commissioned by Dorset County Council, was carried out in November and December 1990 [1]. A watching brief continued on the site during road construction until Easter 1991 [2]. The excavation set out to investigate the nature and date of the features and associated earthworks and a deposit of fired clay thought to be an iron-ore roasting oven. All work was restricted to the road corridor constraining the excavated area to a maximum width of 2m. The excavated area measured 130m long x 20m wide and was subdivided in to four trenches A,B,C and D by narrow baulks. The area was stripped of topsoil and all deposits recorded prior to excavation. In Trench A two stone and fired clay ovens were recorded, radiocarbon dated to the mid Saxon period and associated with large quantites of charred grain, suggesting that they were grain dryers. Large quantites of iron working slag were also found deposited in nearby ditches. This had led to an original interpretation of the structures as iron roasting ovens. However, this large scale excavation demonstrated that the slag was not directly associated with the ovens. [2][3] Trenches B and C contained a number of ditches and gullies, some of which corresponed to earthworks, and a rubble spread. They are broadly dated to the 12th-13th centuries on the basis of associated ceramics. Trench D contained no features other than modern ceramic drains. [2]