Monument record MDO4814 - Causeway, Lazerton Farm, Stourpaine

('A' ST 86271038 'C' ST 86431033 on plan) A causewayed feature was discovered along the line of a short but straight length of former medieval parish or manorial boundary to the east of Hod Hill. The feature was aligned with the 'Ashfield' gate of the Iron Age hillfort (see ST 81 SE 20) and was prominent between points 'A' and 'B' (see plan) where a flanking south ditch and low bank were also visible; between points 'B' and 'C' the feature was still discernible.

Excavation in 1972 and 1973, by permission of Lt. Col. J. F. Warren of Lazerton Farm, threw light on the matter without conclusively resolving it. The wide ditch proved to be flat-bottomed and contained 18th-century building debris in the fill, and both it and the low bank are regarded as post-medieval. The bank to the north, however, now 2 ft. (0.7 m.) high, yielded an 18th century sherd in its upper structure but was found to overlie a two-phase sequence, the earlier element of which was a flat causeway originally 16ft. (4.9 m.) wide, composed simply of flints laid on the old ground surface. A side-ditch, 3 1/2 ft. (1.0 m.) wide, lay closely paralled to the south. The second phase was represented by a raised camber of broken chalk topped by a few flints, covering the original causeway but respecting its side-ditch. The latter appears to have been already well covered by 1 ft. (0.3 m) of soil, containing a medieval sherd, before the ultimate widening and heightening of bank (from spoil excavated from the wide flat-bottomed ditch?).

The phase 2 camber contained no dating material, but the silt in the side-ditch contained snail shells and one small sherd, possibly Iron Age. Odd scraps of Iron Age type pottery lay below and on the flints forming the primary causeway. It is distinctly possible that the original causeway, in its two phases, represents a Roman feature crossing low ground by the Iwerne brook, when the Roman fort within Hod Hill Iron Age fort, was being serviced from the military site at Lake Farm near Wimborne. Plan. <1>

<1> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1974, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1973, 87-88 (Serial). SDO73.

<2> National Record of the Historic Environment, 206197 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 14 2023 3:11PM