Monument record MDO3249 - Inhumation burial, Middle Eweleaze, Manor Farm, Winterborne St Martin

SY 646872. A cist of flat stones about 7ft long, lying approx east-west, and apparently containing a human skeleton, was destroyed when the southern half of Middle Eweleaze was ploughed for the first time in 1950. Mr C Hawkins of Manor Farm says that the stones were apparently visible above the turf prior to their destruction and that covering stones were formerly to be seen as well. After destruction about twenty round flint nodules, some bones including, it is believed, part of a human skull, a sherd of Iron Age C type and two medieval sherds were picked up. Now in Dorchester Museum, Accn. No. 1950.42.I this pottery may not be associated with the cist as Farrar has since found Romano British remains including a Samian sherd, and a medieval sherd about 100 yds north in the neighbouring field. Under the circumstances it is not possible to assign the cist burial to its period, although "there are Bronze Age barrows close by on the same ridge (SY 68 NW 56), and the position of the cist in relation to the modern surface implies the presence of
a protective covering of earth since removed. To regard the burial as the remains of a barrow interment, however, is not to infer that it was necessarily a primary Bronze Age burial". <1>

Efforts to trace the discoverer of this cist were unavailing. The area is now grass covered. <2>

No dating evidence was found with the burial, however, cist burials in Dorset were in use thoughout the Roman and early Medieval periods. So it is possible that this burial dates to one of these periods. <4>

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1951, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1950, 90 (Serial). SDO50.

<2> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 15-JAN-55 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 620 (Monograph). SDO150.

'(146) MANOR FARM (SY 68 NW). An inhumation Burial was found in 1950 in ploughing Middle Eweleaze below the crest of a spur of Upper Chalk above the 400 ft. contour (64658724). The burial lay in a stone cist about 7 ft. long E.-E. Some 20 round flint nodules, a sherd of Iron Age 'C' and two of mediaeval type were found on the site, and some Roman and mediaeval sherds occur in ploughsoil 100 yds. N. where traces of scraps may belong to destroyed 'Celtic' fields peripheral to Ancient Field Group (6). (Dorset Procs. LXXII (1950) 90.)'.

<4> Cherryson, A K, 2006, Gazetteer of Early Medieval Sites, 30 (Unpublished document). SDO17464.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 452464 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Dec 30 2022 2:58PM