SDO10046 - 'Roman Britain in 1989: 1. Sites explored' Britannia

Brief catalogue of archaeological works carried out on Roman sites in Britain during 1986. This includes a summary of discoveries in Dorchester, reproduced here in full: (3) Dorchester (Durnovaria): (i) at Wollaston Field (SY 6948 9060) excavation of four scattered 2 by 2 m trenches east of the Roman baths and close to Icen Way revealed a N-S street. On its eastern side masonry structures were seen; others on the west side, together with a fragmentary meander-pattern mosaic, were associated with a range of buildings on the east side of the Baths. (ii) At Charles Street/Acland Road (693905), to the south of the Greyhound Yard (excavated in 1984) and south-west of the Baths, five trenches sampled an area of 1.7 ha. (c. 6 per cent of the walled city) for which insufficient time and inadequate finance had been allowed for further examination; this is particularly regrettable since the area lies outside the area liable to medieval disturbance and where Roman deposits are well blanketed by the silts of a coombe. (a) In the first trench (of c. 80m2) at the N end, parts of three late Roman stone buildings and an infant-burial were found. (b) A smaller trench c. 22 m east of these yielded a number of early Roman floors belonging to timber buildings. (c) In the third trench (of c. 130 m2), c. 25 m farther south, part of a large late Roman building of three phases was found extending N-S on each side of a corridor and with a metalled courtyard to the east. Some walls retained painted plaster and one room contained an oven and stone-lined tank built into the wall. A number of complete pots had been built into doorways and beneath floors; one of them was covered by a stone slab carrying and infant-burial. Beneath the structure lay pits, wells and at least two phases of timber buildings associated with painted plaster and with four baked clay antefixes carrying faces, each from a different but related mould. The buildings sealed an old ground-surface yielding two early Durotrigian billon coins of Type H. (d) In Trench 4 (of c. 260 m2), dug c. 80 m further south, a street was found running obliquely NE, probably connecting the South and East Gates. On the north side of the street and aligned with in lay a timber building possibly of the first century. This was sealed by a stone strip-building similarly aligned and measuring 6 by at least 17 m; it had at least three phases. Within were two stone-lined ovens, a floor of crushed tile and others of chalk. Seven infant burials beneath the floors may have been associated with the earlier building. (e) Trench 5, c. 9 m farther south, cut the back of the chalk rampart, here 2.5 m high. The internal (north) edge had been reinforced with dumps of clay and chalk, perhaps when the city wall was added to the front. The rampart sealed an earlier bank of chalk and turf, c. 1 m high; but whether this is a marking-out feature or a prehistoric or ROman military rampart is not known. (iii) At Prince’s Street, former Dingles Store (SY 6914 9067), two late Roman stone footings were traced at the rear of the site, running respectively parallel with and at right-angles to the street frontage. (iv) At No. 36 Glyde Path Road (6909 9070) trenching in advance of an extension behind the District Council offices at Nos 58-60 High Street recorded a late Roman gully, some post-holes and a large rectangular pit containing wall-plaster fragments. (v) At Grove Garage, Top o’ Town (SY 6890 9072) trenching identified two of the ditches of the western defences. The western ditch was V-shaped, 5 m wide and 2.3 m deep; it contained a fill of dark brown loam which yielded a sherd of New Forest indented beaker. The second ditch (probably the middle one of three) lay 12 m to the east but extended below the modern road. (vi) At the County Hospital (6905 9040), in the SW corner of the walled area, a sequence of first- to fourth-century buildings was found. One trench located the tail of the western rampart; the primary bank beneath it was bounded at the back by a wall 0.5 m wide. (vii) At Stationmaster’s House, Weymouth Avenue, south of the walled area, excavation revealed a ditch, 1.9 m wide and 0.95m deep, running parallel with and 7 m east of Weymouth Avenue; it is taken to be the side ditch of a Roman road