Monument record MDO19006 - County Constabulary Barracks, Weymouth Avenue, Dorchester; Roman burials

Five burials observed during construction of a new accommodation wing. Only one burial could be recorded before removal, and yielded two bronze brooches. One burial was in a stone-lined cist; the others were in simple graves cut into the chalk.

'Romano-British burials at the County Constabulary Barraks, Dorchester; SY(10)/69038999. Five extended skeletons were found during the construction of a new single-quarter wing at the Police barracks adjoining Maumbury Rings. They are matched by burials found by H St. George Gray during the excavation of the Rings, and by earlier discoveries made during building operations at the barracks, and indicate the existende, a short distance outside the south gate of the Roman town, of a cemetery of simple graves flanking the Roman road to Radipole. No burials later than the 2nd century A.D. are at present known from this cemetery, and all found so far have been inhumations.

The only one of the five burials that was examined before disturbance was complete yielded to spring-pinned fibulae of 1st century type, one with a pierced catch-plate, the other having been broken in antiquity and repaired with a new pin on the hinged-pin principle. The former was recovered from excavated earth. The latter had secured clothing or a wrapping just above the elbow of a humerus which, however, was examined in situ. As the remaining bones had already been carted away, it is impossible to be sure that it came from the same body. This skeleton was in a chalk-cut grave, as were all the others except one in a stone cist and none of those are supposed to have been accompanied by objects.

These discoveries, as well as the earlier records of the cemetery, deserve fuller treatment than I have time for at present. The same applies to the records of the other Dorchester cemeteries, which have never been dealt with adequately.' (1)

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 580-1, no. 220f (Monograph). SDO150.

<1> Farrar, R A H, 1952, Romano-British burials at the County Constabulary Barracks, Dorchester. (Article in serial). SDO9750.

Record last edited

Mar 15 2011 5:36AM