SDO12656 - A preliminary archaeological assessment of a proposed housing development at Front Street, Portesham, Dorset

A desk-based study and site visit was carried out for this proposed development site, in April 1996, to assess the archaeological potential. The principal interests in the site are first, the possibility that remains of Medieval house plots might survive alongside the ancient thoroughfare of Front Street and secondly, that the proposed development lies close to the site of two Romano-British burials discovered in 1975, and may therefore lie within the boundary of a more extensive cemetery. No positive evidence is available for settlement on the street frontage during the Medieval period, although reference to cottages in the nineteenth century, now demolished, may relate to ancient dwellings. The presence of a series of ?Medieval lynchets through the site suggests that much of the site formerly lay within arable fields and therefore unlikely to have been settled in this way. Evidence has been obtained for the presence of a dovecote on the site, recorded on maps into the twentieth century. There is no obvious field evidence for this site, which may be of Medieval date. No further evidence for a Romano-British cemetery is forthcoming, but should it extend into the development area it is likely to be deeply buried by Medieval lynchet deposits.