Monument record MDO47513 - South Gate, Dorchester

There are three breaks shown in the town wall in the south wall shown on Speed's plan of 1610. They are for South Street, Acland road, and Icen Way. No gates are shown on the plan. <1>

"No-one questions that the South gate was was at the end of South Street." <2>

Not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but it was almost etainly at the end of Suth Street. "we believe that the Mediaeval gates were on the site of the Roman gates." Three south gates are documented at Dorchester in October 1642. <3>

The probable foundations of the main South Gate of the town - in South Street - were struck when a surface drain was laid in 1911-2. <4>

The drainage plan of 1911 was consulted in the Borough Engineer's Office. It revealed that the drain referred to cut through the site of the gate as shown. OS plans prior to 1910 place the gate in the present position. <6>

South Gate. A South Gate west of centre is implied by the alignment of the road from the harbour at Radipole, and suggests that the South Gate may be up to 25 yards to the est of the traditional site. For what it is worth JE Acland's recognitin of the South Gatein `some rough courses of stones without mortar, but presenting the appearance of foundations', which he saw in the 1912 drainage trench evidently close to the ast side of South Street, is reconcilable, if at all, only with the nearer of these alternatives. Consideration must also be given to the possibility that there was a South Gate, perhaps the only South Gate, some 70 yards East of this site, although still West of centre; this could be indicated by the possible convergence at the South rampart of the main North-South street, the cardo maximus, of Durnovaria. It is notable that the road SY69SE324, if extended to the cardo maximus, intersects at the point where the cardo maximus intersects the South rampart. Perhaps there was more than one gate in Roman as well as the Mediaeval period. <7>

<1> Speed, John, 1610, Small scale plan of Dorchester (Map). SDO19854.

<2> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1891, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, 142 (Serial). SDO7.

<3> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1893, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, 50-54 (Serial). SDO8.

<4> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1915, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, 2 (Serial). SDO24.

<5> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 1 to 25 inch scale map, 1929 (Map). SDO18020.

[SY69209035] SOUTH GATE [GS] (site of)

<6> 1954, Field Investigators Comments, F1 JR 26-Jul-1954 (Unpublished document). SWX3839.

<7> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 550-1 (Monograph). SDO150.

<8> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1430769 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 22 2024 7:41PM