Monument record MDO19104 - High Street, Fordington, Dorchester; Roman burials

1838, Antiquities (Article in serial). SDO9823.

1839, Fordington Antiquities (Article in serial). SDO9824.

Gomme, G L, 1886, Archaeology: A classified collection of the chief contents of “The Gentleman’s Magazine” from 1731-1868. Volume 2., 164 (Monograph). SDO9822.

Moule, H J, 1901, Dorchester Antiquities, 26 (Bibliographic reference). SDO9439.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 573, no. 216c (Monograph). SDO150.

‘(216) FORDINGTON HILL … (c) Inhumations, and perhaps two cremations, found in 1838–9 in lowering 200 yds. of Fordington High Street between the former Pound (69799063) and a point some 75 yds. W. of the junction with Holloway Road. Over 50 complete skeletons of adults and children were noted in the Chalk, at depths of a few inches to six feet, in the winter relief work sponsored by the Rev. H. Moule, vicar of Fordington; several were examined by him. A number of accounts exist, all of which differ in particulars; the principal authorities are the antiquary John Sydenham (1839), H. Moule (1846), C. Roach Smith (1854, derived from H. Moule), and H. J. Moule (1901, 2nd edn. 1906), curator of the museum from 1881, who was to some extent associated with his father in the work. H. Moule's account of the principal finds, for which he was responsible, is to be preferred.
The cremations consisted of an urn containing burnt human bones, and fragments of another said to show evidence of similar use. About 30 of the inhumations were judged from nails with adherent wood (some in D.C.M.) to have been enclosed in wooden coffins; about half the graves were said by Sydenham to have been orientated N.E. to S.W., the rest, at a higher level, N.W. to S.E., the heads 'placed indifferently'. Two lay face downwards. Finds without particular association included sherds of brown, red and black ware, with one probably of New Forest ware; hob-nails, with several burials; a heap of small beach pebbles between the legs of another; an iron knife; an armlet of twisted bronze wires (1846.2.26); a bronze buckle on the breast of a skeleton, with traces of leather; a coin of Postumus (A.D. 259–68; 1846.2.27). The only other coin, an issue of A.D. 317–20 of Constantine I (1846.2.25), was from the mouth of a male skeleton by the roadside close to the garden door of the former Vicarage (69749063). Three female skeletons were examined by H. Moule on the other side of the road opposite the Vicarage. The first, with head to N. and nails indicating a wooden coffin, had a necklace of which there survive one annular bead of amber, six brown or blue glass beads (onion-shaped, biconical, or roughly made from a wound coil), and about eleven links mostly of flat bronze wire, as well as a fragment of transversely moulded bronze tube, presumably from the clasp; also a notched shale armlet and plain shale spindle-whorl, both turned (Plate 230; 1846.2.12, 23–4). On either side of the skull were a globular black jar and a red flask (Fig. p. 576, nos. 2–3; 1846.2.10–11).
The second female was under a corbelled stone cairn according to Sydenham. She wore a necklace of which 168 unlinked beads were recovered, six of amber, one of stone or chalk, two of bone, and the rest of glass; under the skull were seven pins of dark blue and pale green glass with tapered or swelling shanks, some headless or otherwise imperfect (Plate 230; 1846.2.15–22). There is no evidence as to the precise function or arrangement of these pins, of which the largest was 71 mm. (25/6 ins.) long. The arrangement of the necklace is wholly conjectural. The most distinctive beads are the amber pendant, the cushion-shaped blue bead of polished and bevelled glass adjoining, and five segmented glass beads of pearly appearance probably due to decomposition. Most are biconical (57) or globular (55), with a fair number (19) of irregularly shaped, transversely laminated beads made from wound coils of glass; the remaining 22 glass beads are annular, tubular, onion-shaped, oblong, or roughly square. The colours are brown, dark blue, light blue, green and 'pearl'; two of the blue beads are opaque. The third female possessed a plain shale armlet and a grooved shale spindle-whorl, both turned (Plate 230; 1846.2. 13–14); the spindle-whorl is neater and more nearly spherical than that described above.
Sydenham's account mainly differs in divorcing the glass pins from the necklace, in transposing the spindle-whorls (in which he is supported by the County Chronicle and perhaps by William Barnes), and in assigning the globular jar to a fourth burial where it was allegedly associated with another vessel. There need be no doubt, however, that two if not all three female burials were approximately contemporary, in virtue of their apparently close grouping and the unusual character, regionally, of the principal ornaments. Their date depends upon the pottery, of which the flask, wheel-thrown but of extremely poor brick-like ware with no trace of slip-coating, cannot be dated at all closely within the Roman period. The globular vessel, while not indisputably associated with the group, belongs to a local class of jar of which a very large example, of storage-jar proportions, was in use in the 4th-century house (182) at Colliton Park. It is not yet known, however, when the class was first developed. There is no sound evidence to attribute to the site any other vessels (e.g. 1902.1.42) preserved in D.C.M. (D.C.C., 27 Dec. 1838, 4; 28 Mar. 1839, 4; Gentleman's Magazine (1839), pt. i, 114 (Barnes), 196, 528–31 (Sydenham (fn. 81) ); H. Moule, Scraps of Sacred Verse (1846), 40–1; C. R. Smith, Collectanea Antiqua III (1854), 33–4; H. J. Moule, Dorchester Antiquities (2nd edn., 1906), 46–8, 57–8, 62–3, 70; Hutchins II, 793–5.)’

Record last edited

Aug 22 2024 7:36PM