EDO6638 - Dorset County Museum extension, High West Street, Dorchester; evaluation

Evaluation of the site of a proposed extension to the museum. Eight 1m by 1m test pits were excavated, comprising an approximately 1.06% sample of the site. This revealed that Roman stratigraphy survived across most of the site, except in two courtyard areas which had been terraced. The remains of a Roman road were recorded running north-south beneath thick deposits of post-medieval garden soil. This may be the principal north-south road of the Roman town. To the east of the road a series of early Roman soil layers and a cobbled surface, evidence of road-side activity, were recorded. A number of medieval and post-medieval pits were also recorded, and the remains of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildigns.