Monument record MDO2768 - Medieval occupation, Church Mead, Toller Porcorum

Cox, P and Mcmahon, P, 1998, An Archaeological Evaluation of a Proposed Housing Development at the Former Village Hall Site, School Lane, Toller Porcorum, Dorset (Unpublished document). SDO15365.

<1> Edwards, R, Edwards, D, Gale, J and Yates, J, 1995, Church Mead, Toller Porcorum, Dorset: An Archaeological Assessment. (Unpublished document). SDO12582.

‘4.10 Summary of the Evidence. … Cartographic evidence demonstrates that Church Mead was once one of a number of similar units (meads) which ‘fronted’ onto the stream that runs W-E through the village. Apart from Church Mead, the meads closest to the assessment site appear to have personal names and this suggests an important association with earlier patterns of individual or family land tenure.

Excavations from 1991-1993 dated the Charles’s Mead/Wood’s Mead boundary to c. 1200. Wood’s Mead is within the proposed development area (access road) and this plot was found to contain a two-phase cott of Medieval date. Charles’s Mead to the W, encloses unexcavated earthworks. It is possible that a Medieval lynchet edge approximately follows the line of the modern housing development in the NE part of Church Mead.

Excavations in the Post Office garden (once part of Church Mead and adjacent to the assessment site) have revealed medieval foundations, pottery and a ditch which has been dated as Iron Age. The garden has a N-S scarped earthwork which conforms to the W limit of the 1930s Post Office grounds, but it is possible that it represents an earlier land boundary.

Pre-12th century, possibly late Iron Age or Romano-British features have been found within and close to the proposed development area (Hunt 1990: 124; Gale 1991: 179). Occasional Romano-British potsherds have been discovered.’

<2> Cox, P W, and Robinson, S, 1996, An archaeological evaluation of the proposed village hall site at Church Mead, Toller Porcorum, Dorset (Unpublished document). SDO12580.

<3> Cottrell, T, 2000, Further archaeological investigations during groundworks at the new village hall site, Church Mead, Toller Porcorum, Dorset (Unpublished document). SDO12581.

Record last edited

Aug 23 2017 4:02PM