EDO5950 - Stapehill Solar Farm, Canford Bottom, Wimborne; evaluation 2015

Evaluation of a proposed development area of approximately 7.6ha, comprising pasture on a south-facing slope. Geophysical survey in 2015 was generally inconclusive, though a circular feature corresponding to a ring-ditch visible on aerial photographs can be seen. The evaluation comprised excavation by machine of 16 trenches (one 10m long, one 26m long, and fourteen 50m long) targeting known cropmarks or geophysical anomalies. Trenches were excavated under archaeological supervision, using an excavator with toothless grading bucket, to the top of the first significant archaeological horizon or the natural substrate, whichever was encountered first. Two ring ditches of probable Bronze Age date were recorded, one shallow and with no evidence of an internal mound (Trench 8), the other (Trench10) surviving as a discernible low mound on the spur of a hill. A pair of ditches, visible as a cropmark extend from the south into the site area and flank the ring ditch and extend across the site (not, as previously suggested, forming the terminal of a possible cursus-type feature); these were dated as broadly prehistoric. An undated circular gully (Trench 1) measured some 5m by 4m; possibly the base of a charcoal clamp, or drip-gullies associated with an unidentified structure.