SDO21372 - Land off Church Path, Iwerne Minster, Dorset. Archaeological Field Evaluation of Proposed Site for New Dwellings December 2024

‘Terrain Archaeology carried out an archaeological evaluation of a site off Church Lane, Iwerne Minster proposed for four new dwellings in December 2024. Two trenches were excavated: one across the proposed building footprint and one across the proposed car parking area. A total of six graves and possible graves were identified across the two trenches, all oriented east-west containing extended burials with the head to the west. One grave was cut by a line of postholes perhaps representing a fenceline. These features were undated but were stratigraphically earlier than a series of ditches containing medieval pottery and forming a series of regular property boundaries. The burials may form part of an extended churchyard associated with the Early Medieval minster church. The ditches and other features containing medieval pottery probably relate to settlement which developed within the postulated former minster precinct in the medieval period.’