Monument record MDO19405 - Pound Lane, Christchurch (site X1); Saxon town defences

Excavations at Pound Lane car park in the north-east corner of the Saxon burh and medieval town of Christchurch, during 1970-1, revealed a 9m wide turf and earth bank associated with a wide and shallow ditch with a very wide berm. No dating evidence was recovered but the bank and ditch were interpreted as forming the late Saxon burh defences, for which documentary evidence would suggest a date of earlier then c. 919 AD.

K. Jarvis directed excavations at Pound Lane car park in the north-east corner of the Saxon burh and medieval town of Christchurch, during 1970-1, in order to better understand the line of the Saxon burh defences. These excavations were subsequently published in DNHAS monograph 5 (1). The excavations revealed a 9m wide turf and earth bank associated with a wide and shallow ditch with a very wide berm. The line of these defences ran approximately NE-SW, perpendicular to High Street and the main axis of the town, and are postulated to form the northern defences of the Saxon burh.

The ditch was revealed in the NW part of the site and measured 3.8m wide by only 1.1m deep, a configuration perhaps necessitated by the unstable nature of the natural gravels. The primary fill was a black humic deposit interpreted as the slow silting of a ditch often filled with water and the weeds associated with damp conditions. The ditch may have been filled from the stream and marshes for much of its life as suggested by the excavation conditions during 1971. The complete silting of this ditch may have occurred over a considerable time period. A later V-profiled ditch was re-cut through the fill.

To the SE of the ditch a layer of compacted chalk overlay a layer of grey gravel interpreted as the old ground surface and berm between bank and ditch.

Further to the SE the bank had been spread over a 15m wide area. It was composed in the NW part of a footing of sand [layers 9 & 20] which had been cut by a footing trench [F10] for a later medieval town wall. The rear tail of the bank was not recognised until the 1971 season. The bank was a mix of soil and decayed turf with individual sods clearly visible in damp conditions in the section.

The excavator postulated that the 9m wide bank implied a considerable original height and that the bank may have been topped by a timber palisade. However, the 1971 excavations produced no evidence for timbers and it may be that a timber revetment was destroyed when the wall was built. An 11m long beam slot [F23] was found at the tail of the bank suggesting some structure stabilising the rear.

No dating evidence was recovered during the 1970 season but during 1971 three sherds of Saxo-Norman pottery were recovered from a shallow pit [F18] below the foundations of the medieval town wall. This led the excavator to suggest that the wall was inserted into a Saxon bank in the pre-conquest period or shortly after. Documentary evidence would suggest a date of earlier then c. 919 AD for the initial construction of the bank.

<1> Jarvis, K S, 1983, Excavations in Christchurch 1969-80, 22-7 (Monograph). SWX4028.

Record last edited

Feb 17 2011 11:41AM