SDO192 - Excavations at 29 High Street, Wimborne Minster, Dorset

The property known as 29 High Street is located in the centre of the Medieval town near to the north-eastern corner of the boundaries of Wimborne Minster precinct. The building is part of a larger structure, being the south wing of ‘The Priest’s House’, “a substantial town house of the early 17th century, with 18th-century additions” (RCHM 1975, 88-9). East Dorset District Council (EDDC) acquired the lease of number 29 for use as the local Tourist Information Office, with the upper floors to be used for storage by the town museum which occupies the remaining parts of the Priest’s House. The poor conditions of this part of the building and the need to improve the museum’s facilities required complete renovation, including considerable structural repairs. These works were timed to take place over the winter of 1990/91. As the ground floor of number 29 was to be disturbed during this work English Heritage had requested that EDDC ensure that a full archaeological investigation be carried out prior to the start of the renovations. It was also requested that structural details of the standing fabric should also be recorded, especially the east bay of the building which is timber-framed construction. A full account of the historical and archaeological background to the town can be found in Woodwars (1983), with a more detailed discussion of the historical and topographic evidence in Taylor (1968), Barker (1980), Penn (1980), Blair (1983) and Keen (1983). The most extensive excavations in Wimborne area those carried out on an abandoned part of the medieval town, the Leaze, (Field 1973). Other small-scale excavations were undertaken in more central locations close to the present excavations: six small excavations and watching briefs in advance of redevelopments between 1975 and 1983 were located within 200m of the Minster (Woodward 1983 and Graham 1984). In common with the present excavations some of these sites have produced Romano-British finds in residual contexts, but otherwise there is scant evidence for pre – (Norman) Conquest settlement, with no investigation of any earlier Medieval buildings, monastic activity or the town defences. It is unlikely that the Domesday settlement was either large or dense (Darby and Finn 1967). Nevertheless, the obvious absence of a 12th to early 13th century frontage building in this part of the High Street is perhaps surprising. The course of Ditch 22 continues the alignment of Cook Row from the opposite side of the High Street and it is tempting to consider the possibility that this represents an eastern extension of the northern boundary of the Minster precinct, perhaps running as far east as the River Allen. Such an arrangement would have prevented the High Street acting as a thoroughfare, however, and a somewhat more substantial boundary might have been expected. Whatever the nature of the 12th/ early 13th century settlement, it is clear from Field’s (1983) observations that the Priest’s House site was occupied by a building on or near to the High Street frontage by the later Medieval period. The plan of that structure and its relationship to later phases of the Priest’s House were not forthcoming from those small trenches, and the development of the building could not be clarified from the present excavations due to the truncation of the relevant deposits.