SDO16249 - Land south of Warmwell Road, Crossways, Dorset. An Archaeological Evaluation report

Report on a field evaluation of a site proposed for residential development. The western part of an enclosure (the eastern part a Scheduled Monument) is situated within the site, and the evaluation targeted this and other anomalies seen in geophysical survey. A number of archaeological features corresponding to geophysical anomalies were identified, and interpreted as field boundaries of probable recemt origin. The lower fillings of the enclosure ditch contained pottery which indicated that it had been backfilled no earlier than the late Iron Age, and the use of the enclosure was possibly of short duration. The authors discuss the enclosure in Bowley's Plantation in relation to other later prehistoric rectilinear enclosures in Dorset, and comment on its unusual characteristics, being a double-banked and large example in a lowland situation.