SDO10016 - Land at the Rear of Dorchester Police Station. Archaeological Watching Brief Report.

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Taylor Woodrow Developments Limited to carry out an archaeological watching brief during groundworks for a new housing development, centred on National Grid Reference (NGR) 369070 90000, on land at the rear of Dorchester Police Station, Dorchester, Dorset (the Site). Prior to the development there had been various ancillary buildings on the Site. The main period of watching brief was undertaken between 30th August and the 5th September 2005, with an additional site visit for the examination of a service trench on 24th October 2005. The site adjoins the monument of Maumbury Rings, originally a Neolithic henge, later utilised as a Roman amphitheatre from the 1st Century AD, an artillery fort for parliament supporters during the Civil War, and during the mid - to late - 18th Century as an arena for public executions. The area of the watching brief is also only about 250m south of the city walls of Roman Dorchester (Durnovaria). Weymouth Avenue, to the immediate west of the Site, follows the alignment of a Roman road. Extensive truncation during the modern era, as a result of the construction of the (now former) ancillary buildings associated with the police station was observed across the Site. However, the watching brief recorded a number of surviving archaeological features, potentially associated with the adjacent Maumbury Rings. A total of five substantial pits, some intercutting, contained prehistoric struck flint, Romano-British pottery and animal as well as some human bone. Their exact date is uncertain, but their presence suggests a long-term site use during the prehistoric and Romano-British periods. The Late Neolithic occupation within the monument itself features deep conical shafts cut through the henge's enclosure ditch, and it is possible that the pits identified on this Site served a related purpose. Human bone recovered from one pit may indicate that this may have been of a ritual or funerary nature. A single coffin inhumation of a Romano-British date was recovered from the Site. The interred individual was most likely a middle-aged female which had suffered from osteoarthritis prior to her death and who had incurred an infected fracture of the right leg during her life time. Whilst no further graves were identified during the groundworks, which might indicate the female grave originally formed part of a wider cemetery; the relatively high levels of modern truncation across the Site may have resulted in their removal. Indeed the general location of the Site and its immediate environs, still represent the likely location for a Roman extra-mural inhumation cemetery.