Monument record MDO19053 - Round barrow, Masonic Hall, Prince's Street, Dorchester

Beaker vurial found under Masonic hall in 1902. An inhumation with a Beaker in its hands. Traces of a surrounding ditch suggest that it originally lay beneath a barrow mound. The site now lies beneath the Masonic Hall in Prince's Street, Dorchester. Apparently the inhumation was found under the present doorstep, while the ditch passed beneath the dining room fireplace. A number of Roman finds also came from beneath the same buiding, including a bronze wire chain and a quantity of pottery.

[SY 67059065]. Under the MASONIC HALL, PRINCE'S ST, were found a beautiful foursavare chain of bronze wire, and a bronze pickwick attached, together with a quantity of fragments of Samian and Upchurch ware. The chain is in the museum. It may have been the rubbish pit of the house at Somerleigh COURT. BA inhumation with drinking cups in hands under present doorstep of MASONIC HALL - cups in Museums. Ditch of barrow under present fireplace in the dining room. Hundred or so fragments of Ro pottery. Part of Samian bowl and bronze pick in Museum. [The step is plotted. It is shown as the centre of a kerbed circle - probably the barrow ditch - with a diameter of 24.0m]. <2>

Beaker ornamented by zones of horizontal parallel lines found under the MASONIC HALL in 1902. The siting of the doorstep of the MASONIC HALL agrees with that shown in T1 at the NGR given in T1. There appears to have been no structural alteration to the original building. <3>

Found in 1902 when lowering the floor of the Masonic Hall, probably primary crouched inhumation in grave, with type B beaker by the arm, probably covered by a barrow the ditch of which was located. <4>

The beaker is a Wessex/ Middle Rhine type. <5>

<1> Acland, J E, 1908, Catalogue of Sepulchral Pottery in the Dorset County Museum, 141, no. 111 (Article in serial). SDO9782.

<2> Acland, J E, Private 1 to 25 inch scale map and index, 1904-1932 (Map). SDO19853.

Note with 1/2,500 plan fixed to the above index, undated (C S Prideaux)

<3> Display Card Dorset County Museum (Graphic material). SWX1314.

<4> Grinsell, L V, 1959, Dorset Barrows (Monograph). SDO132.

<5> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 144 (Monograph). SDO150.

<6> Clarke, D L, 1970, Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland, 304, 479, 532, 559 (Monograph). SDO18289.

<7> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/093 RCHME Inventory: Dorset II (South-East) (Unpublished document). SDO17434.

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 453429 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 22 2024 7:35PM