EDO5376 - 41-45 High Street, Shaftesbury; evaluation

Terrain Archaeology conducted an archaeological evaluation in the rear gardens of 41-45 High Street, Shaftesbury during January-Feb 2001. Six test pits measuring 1m by 1m (enlarged to 1m x 2m where archaeological deposits were encountered) were dug by hand. The pits were positioned to evaluate the whole length of the 'footprint' of the proposed new buildings, and to test the nature of deposits in the gardens between. Their precise locations were determined by the present layout of the gardens and outhouses, and consequently it was not possible to put a test pit in the northern end of the proposed eastern building. Medeival soils and possible garden features were revealed in Test Pit 3 and perhaps also Test Pits 2 and 5. Elsewhere the early stratigraphy had been either truncated by nineteenth-century terracing, or was so deeply buried beneath nineteenth-century deposits that it was not revealed. Artefacts recovered from the site suggested occupation from the eleventh century onwards.