Monument record MDO19079 - Roman burials, Icen Way, Dorchester

Several inhumations were found during the digging of the cellars for 25 and 26 Icen Way in 1886. Some early and late Roman finds possibly associated with these burials.

Several inhumations (exact number unknown) were found during the digging of the cellars for 25 and 26 Icen Way in 1886 and recorded by B A Hogg. The burials were described as 'in various postures' and were found in the bottom of a wide trench cut into the chalk. Objects probably recovered from this site include a blue glass 'melon' bead, about 30 hobnails and some pottery including two Black Burnished vessels (one 4th centuryAD bowl with flanged rim) and an olive green glazed jar with seven irregularly spaced groups of repousse bosses of 1st or early 2nd century AD date.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 575, no. 217a (Monograph). SDO150.

‘(217) Icen Way (a) Inhumations found in 1886 on the N.E. side of Icen Way, S.E. of Gallows Hill. It appears from B. A. Hogg's annotated sketch that the burials, 'in various postures', were found in the 1880s (the last digit is omitted) in the bottom of a wide trench in the Chalk, in digging cellars of new houses above Icen Cottage; evidently the semi-detached pair 'Devon Lodge' and 'Calder' (69719040) approved by the Borough Surveyor in 1886. A blue-glazed 'melon' bead and about 30 hob-nails (1886.9.136) from Icen Way, given by Hogg, are probably from the site, as are also two black ware vessels—a 4th-century bowl with flanged rim, of Gillam's type 228, (fn. 83) and a cookingpot, undecorated but similar to no. 41 from Victoria Park (1886.9.5 and 49; Hogg collection). The most notable object is an olive-green lead-glazed jar of the 1st or early 2nd century with seven irregularly spaced groups of repoussé bosses; the sandy body is dark grey to brown in fracture (no. 6; Plate 228; 1886.9.19, Hogg collection). Further discoveries, probably in the houses at the foot of Duke's Avenue, are indicated by the coffin angle-iron found in Gallows Hill in 1895 'with an amphora and other Roman relics', and a fractured, healed femur (in D.C.M.) from a Roman grave, both given by A. Groves. (Dorset Album II, f. 44A, in D.C.M.; Moule, 51, 56, 85–6.)’

Record last edited

Dec 16 2025 12:25PM