EDO5390 - Old Brow, Bimport, Shaftesbury; evaluation 2002

An evaluation carried out by AC archaeology for Place Archaeological Consultants Ltd on behalf of architects Philip Proctor Associates, in connection with a planning application for residential development in the gardens of Old Brow. Five trenches were dug within the 'footprint' of the proposed new building. The trenches covered an area of 23.2 square metres in total. No evidence was recovered which could be associated with the medieval castle and farmstead or the Saxon burh. Only small quantities of medieval pottery and animal bone were recovered, in layers that were evidently disturbed and re-deposited, and the excavators concluded that extensive landscaping had taken place across the site, probably in the late 1940s. One test pit revealed a layer containing moderate quantities of worked flint, likely to date to the middle or later part of the Mesolithic. This layer was not identified in any other trench; the excavators could not determine whether this represented a localised deposit, or the remains of a more extensive deposit removed by the landscaping.