Monument record MDO6667 - Cemetery at Jordan Hill, Preston, Weymouth

A cemetery at Jordan Hill. Perhaps pre-Roman in origin, lay N and NE of the temple at Jordan Hill. A description is given of it in Warne's Ancient Dorset. Approximately 80 burials of adults and children were found in the area of about one acre. The bodies were orientated in a variety of different directions, many of the inhumations were flexed, and some burials contained groups of up to six individuals. There were some cists. One burial had chalk tessellated paving. Nails found in some burials suggested the used of wooden coffins. There may have been some demarcation of burial plots as low drystone walls (one crescent shaped) were found, some of which had burials in their structure. In an account by Shipp in Hutchins' History, Possibly associated with the cemetery were several white clay floors with stone walls, clay-lined hollows containing ashes, animal bones and sherds, some of which had stone lined drains. Two stone cists with burnt shale and calcined animal bones. Several stone piles with animal bones or vessels containing animal bones on top of them. Of the burials described by Shipp, he mentions in detail some of the pottery associated with the burials, of note was collection of vessels found on a shale plaque or tray at the shoulder of the skeleton. With black ware bowls around the tray and a bottle of yellowish ware at the knees. Most of the vessels can be dated to the second half of the 1st century AD, with some from the second century or later. Other items found were a bronze armlet, finger-rings, sandal nails as well as iron arrow-heads, an iron sword, styli and bone weaving combs. (1)

Col Drew thinks this site was probably 0.25 mile W of where marked. (2)

[SY 698 823] In November 1845 Mr Medhurst found a cemetery where he obtained 40-50 urns and Samian pottery. Some are in the Dorset County Museum and some in the BM. The site is 300 yards N of the shaft in theTemple [Dorset 53 NE 3]. [SY 6995 8203] The site of the cemetery is about 100 yards on the SE side of the Temple. It appeared to be a parallelogram bounded on each side by a low thick stone wall giving itslightly the appearance of a raised vallum, and extending over an areaof 500 ft. At about 2 ft depth a cist was found containing a skeleton with nails and decayed wood - evidently a coffin. The site produced several inhumations, burnt bones and animal bones, urns and altars". In the same field a coin hoard was found in 1812 [Dorset 53 NE 7]. [SY698 823] This site is about 300 yards from the Temple "on the northernslope of the hill though the intervening space is also part of the same extensive Roman cemetery. There were a few personal ornaments andstyli an iron sword, bone spearhead, a fragment of Purbeck marble showing a mould for casting a dagger and the foot of a table or chair of Kimmeridge Shale. The cemetery began to be used about 1 AD - Iron Age C and continued to be used during the Roman occupation. The burials were clearly inhumations and not cremations. Some 80 skeletonswere found and only part of the cemetery was excavated. Some of the bead rim pottery is in the Dorset County Museum. [The conflicting evidence of site is based upon the original Medhurst excavation of 1845]. (3-7)

In the Roman cemetery on Jordan Hill was found a slab lying near a skeleton and on it a handled cup of black ware, also a Samian cup
around which were five small bowls of blackware with a piece of Kimmeridge Shale, smooth and bearing linear and semi-circular
tracings. An elegant bowl of Kimmeridge Shale was found by Medhurst in1845. (8)

[SY 69 82] No evidence was obtained during field investigation to confirm any of the sitings given in Authorities 2 and 3. The area is
under pasture and a crop. There were no surface finds. The area indicated includes the sites given in Authorities 1, 2 and 3. (9) gcs

The cemetery perhaps pre-Roman in origin, lay N and NE and extended atleast 300 yds, over an area where Roman material occurs on the
surface. The most reliable account is probably that of T W Wake Smartin Warne's Ancient Dorset. About 80 inhumation burials of adults and
children were found in an area of about one acre, variously orientatedand often flexed, and sometimes in groups of up to six individuals.
Some were in stone cists and one grave was paved with chalk tesserae; nails indicated that some had been in wooden coffins. Low drystone
walls, one of crescent-shape 21 ft long, apparently demarcated burial plots and sometimes had burials in their structure (Shipp (in Hutchins) states that the cemetery was within a parallelogram 500 ft across with a low thick wall). Near the burials were (i) several floors of white clay, one seemingly of 18 ft by 12 ft with stone walls; (ii) clay-lined hollows containing ashes, animal bones and sherds, several apparently provided with stone-lined drains; (iii) twostone cists containing burnt shale and calcined animal bones; (iv) several stone piles on which rested animal bones or vessels containing them. Some burials had single pots or groups; in one group
of nine vessels, three (a samian dish, a black ware imitation of samian form 37, and a handled cup of black ware) stood on an engraved oblong plaque or tray of shale placed at the shoulder, with five blackware bowls ranged around it, and a bottle of yellowish ware at the knees. Another imitation of samian form 37 was made of shale. Some 80 vessels survive (mostly in DCM and BM) out of perhaps 125 listed as from Jordan Hill in sale catalogues of the Medhurst Collection (Sotheby's, 1 July 1879; C T Jefferies, Bristol, 1893), including manyDurotrigian jars, bowls and handled mugs, some samian ware, imitation samian in black fabrics, a Gallo-Belgic terra rubra bowl and terra nigra platters, and two lead glazed beakers. Although sherds of late Romano-British ware were found, most of the whole vessels may be attributed to the cemetery and assigned to the second half of the 1st century AD, with some few of the 2nd century or later. A bronze armlet, finger-rings and sandal nails accompanied burials, also iron arrowheads, an iron sword, styli, and bone weaving-combs. Other objects from the cemetery area, not necessarily with burials and in some cases suggesting domestic or indistrial occupation included iron spear-heads, saddle and rotary quern-stones, chert and flint balls, a shale armlet and lathe-turned armlet cores, a Durotrigian silver coin and three of the 3rd and 4th centuries, sherds including painted ware of New Forest type, and mnay pieces of angular supports resembling salt-boiling 'briquetage'. Less precisely attributed objects from Jordan Hill are four more whole or partial shale plaques or trays withengraved decoration, a carved shale slab, a shale tablet with stylizedlion in relif from a site yielding bronze coins and sherds, Iron Age swan-necked and ring-headed pins (Arch J xci (1934), 228-9) La Tene I and III and Roman brooches, and a bronze Roman mirror-handle (Archaeologia Cambrensis c (1949), 32). (10) rchme

National Record of the Historic Environment, 452633 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1927-38 Prov. (Map). SWX1540.

Warne, C, 1872, Ancient Dorset (2nd Edition), 229-234 (Monograph). SWX1971.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 617-618 (Monograph). SDO150.

Record last edited

Oct 4 2024 12:03PM