Monument record MDO19340 - Keith Motors, Christchurch, Archaeological Watching Brief; medieval town defences

A watching brief at the Keith Motors site High Street, Christchurch, during 1979-80, revealed evidence for the medieval town defences. Although the town wall rubble had been removed, two ditches with centres 9m apart were located and plotted and probably represent a complete record of all the defensive ditches at this point.

P. Aitken conducted a watching brief at the Keith Motors site, High Street, Christchurch, during 1979-80. The results were subsequently published as a short note in DNHAS monograph 5 (1).

The observations revealed evidence for the medieval town defences. Although the town wall rubble had been removed, two ditches with centres 9m apart were located and plotted. Conditions for observation were reasonably good and these ditches probably represent a complete record of all the defensive ditches, greater than 1m deep originally, at this point.

The inner ditch had a V-profile, was 2.0m deep and seemed to have silted up naturally. The outer ditch was of similar size and filling originally, although truncated to 0.7m deep. They were both filled with clean buff sand with no trace of charcoal or mortar. In places the dune formation survived and had been scarped with the inner ditch to form a continuous face without a berm.

<1> Jarvis, K S, 1983, Excavations in Christchurch 1969-80, 52 (Monograph). SWX4028.

Record last edited

Feb 17 2011 11:56AM