Monument record MDO3627 - Romano-British burial, Bryanston School

A Romano-British inhumation burial was excavated during works for extension of the Music School at Bryanston School in 1958. The burial was determined as male, and was interred in an extended posture, head to the south east. Square-headed iron nails at intervals along either side of the skeleton probably indicate a wooden coffin. The burial was tentatively assigned a fourth century date.

ST 870075. Indications of Romano-British settlement. <2>

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 1, 48 (Monograph). SDO146.

‘(10) Inhumation Burial and Occupation Debris (870075), Romano-British, were found in 1958 at Bryanston School at about 300 ft. above O.D. on a chalk ridge. The burial, an extended adult male in a shallow grave, had been deposited in a wooden coffin. Some 16 ft. to the N. a circular pit, 5½ ft. deep and 4½ ft. in diameter, contained chalk rubble, flints, 2nd-century to 4th-century pottery including a samian sherd, and a bronze brooch. There were traces of another pit to the S.E. Previously other coins and pottery had been found in the area. (Dorset Procs. XXVIII (1907), xxxix; LXXX (1958), 108–10.)’

<1.1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1908, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club for 1907, 34 (Serial). SDO17439.

<1.2> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1959, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1958, 108-110 (Serial). SDO58.

<2> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 341 (Monograph). SDO136.

‘Group (60): Bryanston and Durweston (Plate 88). 'Celtic' fields are traceable over 180 acres in the W. of Bryanston parish and over 220 acres of Durweston parish, chiefly in the E. They formerly continued in all directions, and blocks may have been connected within some 1,500 acres; … there are indications of another settlement ¾ mile E.N.E., at 870075 (Bryanston (10), p. 48).’

<3> McDermott, J, 1997, Summary Report on an Archaeological Watching Brief at Bryanston School, Blandford, Dorset, 1997 (Unpublished document). SDO14154.

<5> National Record of the Historic Environment, 205462 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jul 22 2024 12:21PM