Monument record MDO18008 - St George's Road NE-SW linear field system

A series of shallow ditches aligned NE-SW running up and down the slope during the excavations at St George's Road, in advance of the Dorchester By-pass construction. They probably represent part of the Fordington medieval and post-medieval open field system.

Found during the excavations at St George's Road, undertaken by Wessex Archaeology in 1987 in advance of the Dorchester By-pass construction. The following description is abstracted from the final published report on the site (1). The numbers in square brackets refer to context numbers quoted in the report.

A series of shallow ditches aligned SW-NE were found running directly downslope. The predominant feature was a broad feature comprising three intercutting ditches, no deeper than 0.4m, filled with homogeneous brown soil. This probably represents the repeated recutting of a single boundary. Land snails from from these ditches indicate they were hedged. The ditches cut across the earlier field systems and contained pottery dating mainly to the 14th century with some (possibly intrusive?) 18th century pot. This boundary is shown on Simpson's 1779 map of Fordington (2) as a hedged boundary, but is likely to have its origins as a medieval field boundary.

To the east and west were five lengths of ditch on a similar alignment. These were very shallow, up to 0.1m deep and 0.4m wide. They may represent plough marks rather than intentionally cut ditches.

National Record of the Historic Environment, 983963 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Wessex Archaeology, 1987, Dorchester By-pass (Excavation archive). SDO9385.

Woodward, P J and Smith, R J C, 1987, Survey and excavation along the route of the Southern Dorchester By-pass, 1986-1987 – an interim note (Article in serial). SDO9381.

Miller, Andrew, 1993, RCHME: AP Primary Recording Project (Unpublished document). SWX1708.

<1> Smith, R J C et al, 1997, Excavations along the Route of the Dorchester By-pass, Dorset, 1986-8, 23-24 (Monograph). SDO9379.

<2> William Simpson, 1779, A survey of the Manor of Fordington (Map). SDO9386.

Record last edited

Dec 6 2023 1:29PM