Monument record MDO7544 - Iron Age settlement and shale working site, Rope Lake Hole, Corfe Castle

An Iron Age and Romano-British settlement, midway between Kimmeridge and Chapman's Pool on a gently sloping piece of high ground on the cliffs above Rope Lake Hole, revealed by badgers diggings on the cliff top, from SY 93007762 to SY 93207762. Examination of the site in 1963 yielded two pieces of unfinished hand cut armlets in the Iron Age A tradition. <1>

Excavated by Weymouth College students in 1974. Finds indicated occupation from the Early Iron Age to the late Roman period, with evidence of a shale bracelet industry, both hand-cut and lathe turned, salt production and metal-working. Stone lined water gully identified, cut into Iron Age occupation layers. Further excavation has revealed that the earliest settlement (Iron Age to 1st century) consisted of unenclosed circular stone buildings within a system of contoured lynchet fields and work areas, overlaid in the 2nd century by a rectilinear building and yard which yielded lathe-turned shale waste and flint chisel tools representative of large-scale production of armlets. <2-7>

Following partial excavation in 1979 Woodward described circular huts with dry limestone sill walls ranging from 8-15m diameter and a rectilinear stone sill-wall building and yard laid out in the 2nd/3rd century. <5>

In July 1979 Woodward also discovered a crouched Iron Age cist burial with a Durotrigian bowl and shale lid-like object. SMR card

Any settlement or field system remains which may have existed to the N of the coastal path have been ploughed out. On a steep cliff slope of 20m extending for 80m along the cliff there are numerous badger diggings continuing to produce bones, fragments of IA and Ro pottery and a few shale cores, but no evidence of any structures. <9>

Small copper alloy brooch and the base of a small Samian cup recovered following badger activity 1992. <10>

Papworth, M D J, Trust for Wessex Archaeology, 1983, Isle of Purbeck Survey (Index). SDO147.

‘The site lies in a field regularly ploughed. It is eroding from the cliff face. Part excavated by P Woodward in 1979. 7/7/D.’

<1> Farrar, R A H, 1963, Iron Age, Romano-British and mediaeval finds near Rope lake, Kimmeridge., p102 (Article in serial). SWX7825.

<2> Maw R, 1975, Interim Report on An Excavation at Rope Lake Hole Near Kimmeridge, Dorset., 51 (Article in serial). SWX2835.

<3> Keen, L J, 1976, Dorset Archaeology in 1976: Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 98, 58-9 (Article in serial). SWX2836.

<4> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1978, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1976, 58-59 (Serial). SDO76.

<5> Woodward, P J, 1979, Dorset Archaeology in 1979: Corfe Castle (Rope Lake Hole), 138 (Article in serial). SWX8709.

<6> Woodward, P J, 1980, CBA Newsletter and Calendar III/9 Jan/Feb 1980 (P J Woodward), 130 (Article in serial). SWX2837.

<7> Grew, F O (Compiler), 1980, Roman Britain in 1979: Kimmeridge, 390-391 (Article in serial). SWX2838.

<8> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1981, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1979, 138 (Serial). SDO79.

<9> Quinnell, N V, Various, Field Investigators Comments NVQ, F1 NVQ 30-APR-86 (Unpublished document). SDO11903.

<10> Green, M T, 1992, Further finds from Rope Lake Hole, Kimmeridge. , 251-252 (Article in serial). SWX7673.

<11> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1993, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1992, 251-252 (Serial). SDO92.

<12> National Record of the Historic Environment, 456598 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Apr 30 2025 1:14PM