EDO8194 - 16 St Michael's Road, Wareham; observatons and recording 2021

OASIS: Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Tiglian Limited to undertake archaeological supervision and recording works comprising the excavation of footings in association with the re-development of a parcel of land located at 16 St Michael's Road, Wareham, Dorset, BH20 4JY. The works were centred on NGR 392208 087370 (SY 92208 87370) and carried out as a condition of planning permission (6/2019/0185), and in response to an impact assessment. The archaeological monitoring and recording, comprising the excavation of seven trenches and one area, identified a buried soil and a pit both of which possibly date to the medieval period although no datable material was exposed. Project Results: The archaeological monitoring and recording was successful in assessing the archaeological potential of the site and mitigating against any destruction of archaeology without recording. The archaeological deposits found were to be expected regarding the archaeological features in the surrounding area. As the full stratigraphic sequence was uncovered to the natural geology it does not appear that any Saxon or Romano-British features were uncovered despite the site being within the Saxon burgh and the Roman settlement possibly being located only 50-200 m to the north. It is possible that the footing trenches missed cut archaeological features although this seems unlikely due to the small size of the site, certainly linear features would have been uncovered if present due to the location of the trenches.