EWX571 - St Aldhelms Head, Worth Matravers; excavation 1957

A small excavation directed by P A Brown after part of a 13th-century monumental slab of Purbeck marble with the relief of an ornamented cross on a stepped base, was ploughed up in 1957 about 400 yards north-north-east of St Aldhelm's Head. Excavation did not find a missing piece of the slab, but exposed a stone foundation 6ft 6ins square, immediately adjoining; a scatter of rubble surrounding suggested a small building. Further excavation revealed a stone-lined grave, 3ft below the spot where the slab was found, containing an extended female inhumation together with iron rivets and traces of wood which were suggestive of a wooden grave cover.