EDO5499 - Parnham House, Beaminster; desk-based assessment 2001

A desk based assessment was carried out on the development site and its surroundings. The rectangular study area covered 210ha, with an approximate corridor of 500m width, around its perimeter. The assessment comprised of documentary work in order to establish the historic development of the site and its immediate surroundings. This would then allow the historic topography to be reconstructed and compared with that of modern day. Evidence was collected from archaeological databases in the form of the National Archaeological Record and the Dorset Site and Monuments Record. Relevant literature and journals were consulted along with a search of the Archaeology Data Service in order to expound on those sources already compiled. Prehistoric activity is only evidenced by surface scatters of flint, while Iron age finds comprise of a La Tene I broach and a bronze Durotrigian bronze coin. Neither of these lost artefacts however indicates intensive settlement. Fine and coursewares of the Iron Age/Romano British period do suggest the presence of a settlement, however it is not possible to locate on the given evidence. Little of medieval date has been found in the study area, though strip lynchets on the southern slope of Edmund Coombe Coppice are identified. No archaeological finds or features have been located inside the area of the proposed development. The majority of these developments lie in areas which were quite likely to have been disturbed already, by 19th and 20th century developments. (A date range for the desk based assessment has not been supplied.)