Monument record MDO18615 - Colliton Park, Dorchester; Roman Building VI

The fragmentary remains of a Roman building were exposed in the central part of Colliton Park during excavations in 1937 and 1938. Building VI lay to the southwest of Building V and immediately to the west of the N-S Roman road that crossed Colliton Park, but was not aligned on it, indeed its southeast corner impinged on the road, overlying the earlier metalling. It was very poorly preserved and many of the walls were fragmentary. It appears to be the remains of a house arranged on at least two sides of a small courtyard. The full ground plan cannot be reconstructed from the surviving remains and only two rooms, both of which had tessellated floors, on the west side of the courtyard can be defined. The dating of this building is uncertain, but it was probably in use during the 4th century.

(Centred at SY 69009090) Six Roman buildings found in Colliton Park, by Lt Col Drew and Mr Collingwood Selby prior to the erection of a new County Hall. Building 6, had two tessellated floors, but was severely damaged.

The fragmentary remains of a Roman building were exposed in the central part of Colliton Park during excavations in 1937 and 1938. Due to the outbreak of World War II, the excavations were never completed or written up. The following account is based on the interim report <3> and the Royal Commission Inventory entry <5>.

Building VI lay to the southwest of Building V and immediately to the west of the N-S Roman road that crossed Colliton Park, but was not aligned on it, indeed its southeast corner impinged on the road, overlying the earlier metalling. It was very poorly preserved and many of the walls were fragmentary. It appears to be the remains of a house arranged on at least two sides of a small courtyard. The full ground plan cannot be reconstructed from the surviving remains and only two rooms, both of which had tessellated floors, on the west side of the courtyard can be defined. The northern room had only parts of the north, south and west walls surviving. The tessellated floor was fragmentary, but has been reconstructed as having a central square panel containing a central circle with semicircular panels on the sides and quadrants in the corners. The one surviving quadrant contains a calyx urn and the one surviving semicircle contains an outward-pointing pelta surmounted by a bud. The central panel was enclosed in a border of spaced swastika-meander with rectangles infilled with guilloche . <6>

The second room lay to the south and slightly off-line to the east and was a long narrow room, with only small fragments of the east and west walls surviving. The tessellated floor was elaborate and in three colours (red, white, dark blue-grey), with a central portion consisting of a single strip of intersecting octagons with alternate knot and triangle centres within a tripartite border of linked triangles, two strand guilloche and chevrons.

The dating of this building is uncertain, but it was probably in use during the 4th century.

Rigg, J, Field Investigators Comments JR, F1 JR 01-SEP-54 (Unpublished document). SWX1255.

Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1939, Journal of Roman Studies, 219 (Serial). SDO20471.

Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F2 JGB 10-OCT-80 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<1> Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1932, Journal of Roman Studies 22, 45 (Serial). SWX3247.

<2> Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1938, Journal of Roman Studies 28, 193-4, 206 (Serial). SWX2199.

<3> Drew, C D, and Collingwood Selby, K C, 1938, 'The Excavations at Colliton Park, Dorchester: Second Interim report; Excavations carried out in the season of 1938' Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 59-60 (Article in serial). SDO9765.

<4> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1937-1938, Colliton Park, Dorchester (Excavation archive). SDO10066.

<5> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 2, 560 (Monograph). SDO149.

‘Monuments (182–187), in Colliton Park, now occupied by the County Council offices, were excavated in 1937–9 by C. D. Drew and K. C. C. Selby. Interim reports appeared in Dorset Procs. LIX (1937), 1–14, and LX (1938), 51–65. Where the following accounts differ from these reports they are based on unpublished finds and site notebooks in D.C.M., and on a re-examination of the visible remains including the re-exposure in 1959 of the floors of rooms 14 and 18 of Monument (182). For the street and water conduit also excavated by Drew and Selby, see Monuments (180) and (227b). (186) BUILDING, probably a house on at least two sides of a small courtyard E. of the yard of Monument (184), was poorly preserved (69009084; Building VI in interim report, Drew and Selby, op. cit. (1938); Fig. p. 554, Plates, 222, 224).
Two rooms with mosaic floors were found to the W. of the courtyard. The northerly room, 14½ ft. from N. to S., had the remains of a pavement with coarse white surround 3½ ft. wide; the design was apparently an oblong some 10 ft. long, with panels of two-strand guilloche to E. and W. of a square pattern with semicircular panels on the sides and quadrants in the angles, as in room 8 of Monument (182). The S. semicircle with a voluted pelta, the S.W. quadrant with a lotus blossom, and part of the W. guilloche remained (Plate 224); removed to the site of Monument (182), the piece was subsequently destroyed by vandals. A room 15 ft. to the S., 8 ft. by over 18 ft., had a floor with coarse white surround at least 2 ft. wide on the S. and probably some 10 ins. at the sides. The decorated portion, in white, red and dark blue-grey, was a panel 6¼ ft. wide and over 13½ ft. long consisting of a single strip of intersecting octagons with alternate knot and triangle centres, within a tripartite border of linked triangles, twostrand guilloche and chevrons. It is said to have been lifted but is untraced. To N.E. this building overlay the filling (here undated) of the conduit (227b). It also encroached on the earlier metalling of the street (180), and was associated with the later metalling; this part of the building, at least, was therefore probably of the 4th century.’

<6> Cosh, S R, and Neal, D S, 2005, Roman Mosaics of Britain. Volume II South-west Britain, 97-98 (Monograph). SDO10182.

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453300 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 22 2024 7:30PM