EDO5381 - Parsons Pool House, Parsons Pool, Shaftesbury; evaluation 2003

An archaeological evaluation of land adjacent to Parsons Pool House carried out by AC archaeology for Place Archaeological Consultants Ltd on behalf of Philip Proctor Associates, in connection with a planning application for residential development. The proposed development site, approximately 1200 square metres in area, consists of part of the former garden of Parsons Pool House, which is up to 1.5m higher than roads to the north and west. Two trenches, 1.2m wide and overall length 22m, were excavated by machine. Topsoil and overburden were removed by mechanical excavator under archaeological supervision, and machining ceased at the top of the subsoil or intact archaeological deposits. Three broad phases of archaeological activity were identified. The latest, in Trench 1, was activity associated with what was interpreted as the remains of a nineteenth-century timber yard. Trench 2 contained a series of inter-cutting features of medieval date, post-medieval structures, and twentieth-century infilling. The nature of the medieval (13th and 14th century) features was unclear, but they were thought perhaps to relate to a building at the street frontage. A brick and ceramic tile floor was observed at the south-western end of Trench 2; post-medieval pottery was recovered from the foundation layer of this floor, and it was thought likely to relate to structures shown on 17th and 18th-century maps. Above this was a stone slab surface, undated but sitting on a layer containing post-medieval tile fragments, and rubble layers containing quite modern material, thought to be the result of levelling of the site for use as a tennis court in the mid-20th century.