SDO211 - Archaeological Evaluation at Wyke Road, Gillingham, Dorset

The present site is part of a large zone of residential development in the area of Cold Harbour, less than 1km west of Gillingham. The site is some 500m to the north of the Romano-British settlement at Common Mead Lane (Moore and Ross 1989), where excavations provided evidence for continuous occupation from the 1st to the 4th century AD in addition to earlier, late Iron Age, activity. Excavation revealed four features, at least one of which (Context 4) is almost certainly modern. A hollow-way or hedge line in the western part of the site (Context 1) is undated, but is likely to be either Medieval or post-Medieval. A single sherd of pottery would indicate that ditch 3 is of later Roman date, and it has been postulated (above) that, together with the otherwise undated ditch 2, it defines a trackway or field boundaries. The absence of other Roman finds from the scanned topsoil heaps and adjacent exposed areas suggests that any field system in this area is not directly associated with domestic occupation or industrial activity.