SDO10247 - Remains of old road metal and other discoveries in Sherborne; Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society

Short reports from Mr. Bean concerning the results of his observations of drainage and other works in Sherborne. Half Moon Street C.E. Bean observed the excavation of a drainage trench in Half Moon Street during 1955. Generally a band of white ? tufaceous material was overlain by black earth which was itself overlain by a 3ft build up of old road metalling. This directly lay below the modern road surface. This sequence was observed south of the church, opposite the Half Moon Hotel and ‘the bombed site’, outside the weighbridge and to the east adjoining the Almshouses. Furthermore, by the weighbridge at a depth of 3 ft. a quantity of black earth containing fragments of leather, nails, animal bone etc was observed. Disturbed human remains were also seen close to Messrs. Warr’s hairdresser’s shop. These deposits may relate to 19th century road widening works. South Street C.E. Bean observed a drainage trench dug in South Street during 1955. He recorded a 3ft thick layer of road metalling underlying the modern road surface, which he suggested might represent the infilling of a former roadside ditch. 12th century pottery was recovered from the top of the gravels which lay directly below the road metalling. similar thicknesses were observed at Ludbourne Hall, by the Woolmington Hotel and opposite Gainsborough House, about 215 yards from the north gate of the railway crossing. Here the metalling was iron stained and littered with brass pins with spherical wound wire heads. In 1933 similar material was observed at a depth of 2 ft. near the garage gate of the Mitre Inn at the junction of Westbury and Lower Acreman Street. Here a larger quantity of pins of the same sort were observed together with some larger ones and cuttings of brass strip or wire. The British Museum suggested they were 16th-17th century in date, backed up by the associated pottery. Higher Cheap Street C.E. Bean observed a trench excavated by the Southern Gas Board on Higher Cheap Street during 1955. The old road surface was originally some 2.5 ft. below the present street level and had been built up layer by layer over a long period. Long Street (ST64361675) C. E. Bean observed drain excavations in the south side of Long Street, opposite Eastfields, and in the channel of the carriageway, during 1955. This revealed an area of black earth, animal bones, and 13th-14th century pottery. Newland (ST641168) C. E. Bean observed the excavation of foundation trenches for a new house at the junction of Newland and St. Swithin’s Road during 1955. At least 15 burials were recorded, including children and the elderly, in shallow uncoffined graves. The partial remains of two were excavated, on with the right arm under the body, but no dateable finds were recovered. Unstratified 12th-14th century pottery and a 14th-15th century silver gilt oval brooch were found on the site. The brooch was inlaid with garnets and alternate gilt leaves around the edge. This part of Newland was formerly called St. Swithin’s Street and may have been the site of a fair dedicated to him, although no record exists of any chapel or church dedicated to him. Burials were reported to have been found when St. Swithin’s Road and North Road were constructed and old people say that more were found on land to the south of Newland, immediately opposite The Avenue. Furthermore, Hutchins’, 1815 mentions ‘a timber yard where human bones are found, supposed site of Church or Chapel’ in a note on his Sherborne town map. A Sherborne token of Benjamin Snooke was found in the Manor House garden, Newland (ST63991696)