SDO10126 - Christchurch Priory Dorset (SM 22962). Buttress Foundation Investigations: Archaeological Watching Brief, April 2006

ASI Heritage Consultants report on an archaeological watching brief during geotechnic investigations at the base of the westernmost buttress of the north choir aisle of the Priory Church at Christchurch, Dorset, during April 2006. This revealed an abnormally raked buttress foundation of rubble concrete cutting into a deep cemetery soil containing a 'cist' type burial in a rubble sarcophagus of 12th-16th century form at a depth of c. 1.8m below ground level. The report concludes that the buttress is later than the burial and that all the ground within the vicinty of the buttress is likely to have been intensively disturbed by recurrent overlapping graves. Notable artefacts consisted of a Mesolithic 'bullet' core, which, though residual here, indicates the presence of early prehistoric activity in the vicinity.