Monument record MDO18104 - Medieval building (282), Old Methodist Chapel, South Street, Dorchester

Found during the 1982 excavations at the Old Methodist Chapel, Dorchester. Building 282 comprised a rectangular stone cellar entered by a stairway from the west, which probably lay beneath the rear of a building fronting on to South Street. Beneath the stair was a stone-lined pit which contained an early 16th century stoneware jug. The building was probably constructed in the late 15th-early 16th century. A number of pits and a well containing large quantities of 15th century pot were found close to the cellar.

Found during the excavations carried out by Wessex Archaeology in 1982 after the demolition of the South Street Methodist Chapel on the corner of South Street and Durngate Street, Dorchester. (1) The results of the excavation were published together with the results of the adjacent Greyhound Yard excavations. (2) The numbers in square brackets below are context and feature numbers used in the published report (2).

Building 282 lay in the NW corner of the excavation and comprised a rectangular stone-built cellar entered by a stair from the west. It was probably under the rear of a building on the corner of Durngate Street and South Street. The cellar was cut through the gravels of the Roman street 510. The cellar walls were all of a single period of construction and were built with limestone slab faces and flint rubble infill bonded with mortary clay. At the SW corner of the cellar, the remnant of a wall footing continued westwards, possibly the the south wall fo the room from whtih the cellar was entered, or an internal wal between two rooms along South Street. The floor of the cellar appears to have been the bedrock chalk. At the base of the stair was a circular stone-lined pit [321], about 1.9m deep. At the base of the pit was a thin band of chalk rubble sealed by a soft organic layer, possibly rotted wood, which contained a largely intact early 16th century stoneware jug. Above this were layers of rubble and chalk which may have originally sealed the backfilled pit.

The dating of this cellar is not secure, the best dating comes from the 16th century jug found in the pit, suggesting perhaps a late 15th- early 16th century construction date.

A number of small pits rounded pits containing 15th century pottery were found to the SE of the cellar and may be contemporary with it. These were cut by a well [204] 12m deep, which had a ledge cut into the chalk to take a lining but no trace of this survived. It contained a sequence of different fills and contained large quantities of pottery, bone and shell. Close to the SE corner of the cellar was a pit [36] which contained large numbers of sea shells, fish, several broken cooking pots and a complete baluster jug.

These pits and well represent activity behind the frontages of the properties on the corner of South Street and Durngate Street. The period of construction and use fits in with a period of major rebuilding of the South Street frontage and the construction of Greyhound Yard in the late 15th-early 16th century, as suggested by the documentary sources. (2)

Wessex Archaeology, 1982, Old Methodist Chapel excavation archive (Excavation archive). SDO9442.

Trust for Wessex Archaeology, 1983, Dorchester, Durnovaria: Excavations in the town centre at Greyhound Yard, and the Old Methodist Chapel (1982-1984): Interim and introductory notes to the current excavations (Unpublished document). SDO9435.

<1> Woodward, P J, 1982, Excavations at the South Street Methodist Chapel, Dorchester (Article in serial). SDO9436.

<2> Woodward, P J , Davies, S M , and Graham, A H, 1993, Excavations at the Old Methodist Chapel and Greyhound Yard, Dorchester, 1981-1984, 97-99 (Monograph). SDO9411.

Record last edited

Aug 22 2024 7:26PM