Monument record MDO47865 - Roman road from Badbury Rings to Dorchester

The length of the Ackling Dyke roman road which runs through Thorncombe Wood and Puddletown Forest (RR4e) is in places very well preserved. Here the agger and side ditches form significant earthworks and even the outer extent of the road can be traced. The line of the road runs through dense conifer plantations and, in Thorncombe Wood, a deciduous wood.

The length of the Ackling Syke Roman road which runs through Thorncombe Wood and Puddletown Forest (RR4e) is in places very well preserved. Here the agger and side ditches form significant earthworks and even the outer extent of the road can be traced. The line of the road runs through dense conifer plantations and, in Thorncombe Wood, a deciduous wood. The agger, badly damaged in Puddletown Forest, is now clear of trees although swamped by gorse and bracken. This part of the road, surveyed and investigated in Autumn 2004, is comprehensively described in the Archaeological Investigation Report AI/..../2004.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1975, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume V (East), 33-34 (Monograph). SDO129.

Road V. Badbury Rings to Dorchester.
The road from Old Sarum divides immediately N.E. of Badbury Rings and one branch of it (Margary's No. 4e) heads S.W. towards Dorchester. After a short distance it crosses the Badbury-Bath road, which appears on air photographs (Plate 87) to be structurally the earlier of the two; as yet, however, there is no reliable evidence for the date of the layout of the roads nor for their structural history (Dorset II, 528–9). Along the N. side of the hill-fort and the Roman settlement (Shapwick (34), (31)) the road survives as an impressive agger, up to 65 ft. across and 5 ft. high, scarred by quarrying and by numerous tracks, and flanked in places by side ditches and outer banks; in places the total width is 120 ft. Three prominent barrows (Shapwick (47–49)), in line beside the road, are no longer accepted as Roman (Ant. J., XLV (1965), 41–7). To the W. of the Blandford-Wimborne road the Roman road has been destroyed by ploughing and by the modern road to Shapwick, which approximately follows its line. The road passes through the village, where traces of early Roman occupation have been found (Shapwick (33)), crosses the Stour just S. of the church and continues as a slight agger across the floodplain of the river. For some 3 miles beyond this it has been levelled by cultivation, but much of it is visible on air photographs (CPE/UK 1934:3105–6, 3131–5, 5128–9). In Sturminster Marshall the former old fieldnames Greatstreet and Kingsway recall its presence. A short length of the road survives as an earthwork, 40 ft. across and 2 ft. high, immediately N. of the main ride in Little Almer Wood (SY 906998). From Winterborne Zelstone to Winterborne Kingston its line is marked by field hedges and for much of the way by a lane. On the summit of a spur, where the road crosses the parish boundary into Anderson, it changes direction by 9° to the N. Traces of the agger survive in Winterborne Kingston, E. and S. of Abbot's Court, alongside a lane known as East Street; the lane then follows the line of the road into the village.
Beyond Winterborne Kingston the road has been largely destroyed by cultivation, but the agger, some 40 ft. across and 4 ft. high, survives in Bagwood Coppice (SY 852971). Remains of a substantial Romano-British settlement have been found on either side of the road within and W. of this coppice (Bere Regis (120), Dorset II, 594). On Bere Down (SY 846969) the road, poorly preserved, passes through and probably cuts across 'Celtic' fields (Group (32), Dorset II, 633). A section through the road at this point revealed metalling 20 ft. wide in the form of a thin layer of flints and small stones on sandy clay over the chalk rock. It lay between wide, but shallow side ditches, 59 ft. apart centre to centre (Dorset Procs., 71 (1949), 60). Fragments of the agger survive on either side of the valley of the Milborne Brook: on the slope E. of Ashley Barn Farm (SY 816906) where it is flanked on the S. by a deep hollow way, and S.W. of Ashley Barn Farm (SY 810904) where a wide ditch flanks it on the N. side. The road is followed by a track to a point just N.E. of Tolpuddle, but there is no certain trace of it on the outskirts of that village, although a strip lynchet at SY 79509474 appears to mark its alignment. The drains and ridges of the water-meadows have obscured the road where it crosses obliquely the flood-plain of the R. Piddle, but its line is preserved in part of the S. boundary of Burleston parish.
In High Wood and Cowpound Wood, Athelhampton (SY 770937), where Reading Beds overlie the Chalk, a hollow way and a terrace mark the line of the road. Its course in the arable beyond is visible on air photographs (CPE/UK 1934:4074–5; 2018:3041–2). Traces of the agger survive, again on Reading Beds, in Ilsington Wood and also on Castle Hill and Puddletown Heath, now within the conifer plantations of Puddletown Forest. Near the W. edge of the forest the road curves sharply N.W. to avoid a steep-sided hollow, but after 160 yds. it resumes its course S.W. across Duddle Heath. Here the agger is 30 ft. across and up to 3 ft. high with occasional traces of side ditches and outer banks. Just to the W., in Thorncombe Wood (SY 727920), a section cut across the agger showed that it was composed of gravel laid directly on the ground surface; hollows in the top were interpreted as wheel ruts; no side ditches were found (Dorset Procs., 92 (1970), 147–8). A short length of the agger survives in pasture on Hollow Hill (SY 71859167) and slight traces of it are still detectable along the N. side of the present road skirting Kingston Maurward Park. The alignment if continued would carry the road down Stinsford Hill, N. of the modern A 35, across the flood-plain of the R. Stour, towards the presumed E. gate of Roman Dorchester at the foot of High East Street. No convincing surface traces of this section of the road have yet been found, but a ford (or bridge?) apparently of Roman date, discovered in the bed of the Stour in the last century, lies on the same alignment (Dorset II, 540). An uninscribed milestone, probably Roman, stands beside the line of the road at the top of Stinsford Hill (SY 70899130; Dorset III, 257).

<2> Fletcher, M, 2004, The Ackling Dyke Roman Road in Puddletown Forest, Dorset (Unpublished document). SDO14693.

<3> Fletcher, Martin, Field investigator's comments MJF, Fletcher M.J. 04 November 2004 EH Field Investigation (Unpublished document). SDO17630.

<4> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1404779 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Mar 14 2024 10:27AM