SDO15199 - Forston Contact Tank Protection, Charminster, Dorset. An Archaeological Watching Brief

‘Context One Archaeological Services Ltd carried out an Archaeological Watching Brief at Forston WTW, Charminster, Dorset, over 10 days between the 3rd and the 14th of December 2007, during the groundworks for a new contact tank. This was preceded by the observation of five small geotechnical test pits on the site of the proposed tank in June 2007. The project was commissioned and funded by Wessex Water plc. … The watching brief has recovered evidence for settlement or other activity on the Site dating broadly to the Roman period. The centre of the Site is some 60m to the north of a probable Romano-British villa, and it seems reasonable to assume that the features recorded during the watching brief are associated with this building. The recovery of ceramic building material and limestone roof tile during the watching brief strengthens this association. The finds recovered from the Site also indicate activity from the late Iron Age, and this too accords with the evidence for earlier excavation of the villa site. There are no indications as to the function of the excavated features and none of the finds suggest specific agricultural or industrial uses. In addition, the absence of any overall plan from previous excavation of the ‘villa’ building means that its location relative to the watching brief features can not be established. It is not possible to suggest, therefore, how the excavated features might be located relative to domestic and agricultural elements of the ‘villa’. All of the excavated features were buried beneath a significant depth of subsoil that has accumulated along the lower slopes and bottom of the river valley. The history and formation of this deposit is not known, but it may be a product of the intense medieval farming and settlement in the valley. One effect of this has been to blanket earlier ‘sites’ on the lower slopes making them difficult or impossible to detect through aerial photography.’