SDO196 - The Barracks Site, Bridport Road, Dorchester: Report on an archaeological watching brief

A watching brief was maintained by Richard McDonnell for BUFAU in March 1991 in advance of road realignment and car park rearrangement. The archaeological significance of the area of the parade ground, at the Barracks Site in Dorchester, has been demonstrated during two previous developments. These were on the site of the Crown Building, where a late Romano British cemetery was recorded (Green et al 1981), and on the site of the new Dorset Record Office where a Romano British ditch and two phases of the barracks were archaeologically excavated (Hughes 1989). Three areas where shallow excavation was required were sited to the south east of the Little Keep. The trenches were lettered A, B and C and their location is shown in Figure 1. The trenches were machine dug by a JCB with a toothed bucket of a nominal 1.0m width. Between Trench A and trenches B and C there are reported two vast underground water storage tanks which occupy an area roughly 35.0m by 10.0m and which are apparently oriented north east - south west and lie approximately 10.0m to the south east of the Little Keep. These tanks are thought to have been installed during the Second World War (pers comm. Mr F Pitfield). The cobbled channel on the road side in front of the Little Keep is reported to be part of a complete circuit which originally ran around the parade ground (per comm. Mr F.) No archaeological features or artefacts were recorded in this Trench. The surface of the chalk was not recorded in this Trench. The complete absence of any recorded archaeological material that pre dates the Little Keep or the parade ground is perhaps noteworthy given the proximity of the Romano British cemeteries to the south east and also against the Poundbury Road to the north west (Hughes 1989, 88). It is possible that the levelling of the area prior to the laying down of the parade ground stripped away any evidence of Romano British activity, if it existed, in the area of trenches B and C. The apparently truncated and unweathered surface of the natural deposits of chalk in Trench B supports this position.