Monument record MDO37405 - Lynchet 27006, Corfe Mullen to Salisbury Water Transfer Scheme Evaluation Trench 27, Pimperne

A broad curvilinear feature visible on aerial photographs, which was picked up as a geophysical anomaly and subsequently excavated by an evaluation trench as part of the investigation of the route of the Corfe Mullen to Salisbury Water Transfer Scheme in 2012. It was shown to be the remains of a negative lynchet with a number of plough scars in the underlying natural chalk. (The record for this monument has been created with support from Wessex Water). The lynchet was digitally plotted from aerial photographs taken in 2005 during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM Project.

A broad curvilinear cropmark feature is visible on a 2005 aerial photograph. It has a fairly well defined northern edge, but it is much more diffuse to the south and may be much broader than mapped and could possibly be geological in origin. It lies south of a similar broad curvilinear feature which was also interpreted as a possible lynchet. [1]

Part of this feature was picked up as a negative linear anomaly (211), indicative of a former banked feature, during the geophysical survey of the proposed route of the Corfe Mullen to Salisbury Water Transfer Scheme in 2012. [2]

Geophysical anomaly 211 was investigated as part of the evaluation excavation of the Corfe Mullen to Salisbury Water Transfer Scheme route in 2012, when Trench 27 was cut across it. It proved to be the remains of a broad negative lynchet (27006) with a number of plough scars visible in the underlying natural chalk. It appears to cut the top of a possible Late Prehistoric pit (27002). The lynchet was filled with a series of soil layers, the lowest one which produced a single sherd of Black Burnished Ware pottery. [3]

The record for this monument has been created with support from Wessex Water.

The lynchet was digitally plotted from aerial photographs taken in 2005 during the Dorset Middle Stour AIM Project [1].

<1> GetMapping, 2005, Digital vertical aerial photographs (Aerial Photograph). SDO12563.

<2> Marsh, B and Biggs, M, 2012, Geophysical Survey Report Corfe Mullen to Salisbury WTS, 24 (Unpublished document). SDO14089.

<3> Havard, T and Nicholl, M, 2013, Corfe Mullen to Salisbury Transfer Scheme, Wessex Water, Dorset and Wiltshire: Archaeological Evaluation, 17 (Unpublished document). SDO14094.

Record last edited

Nov 30 2022 5:47PM