SDO9834 - ‘Roman Britain in 1984: 1. Sites explored’ Britannia

Brief catalogue of archaeological works carried out on Roman sites in Britain during 1984. This includes a summary of discoveries in Dorchester, reproduced here in full: p306 (3) Dorchester (Durnovaria): (i) at Greyhound Yard (SY693906) an area of 3025m2 was excavated near the centre of the town in an insula south of the presumed forum and west of the baths. Roman structures overlay part of a Neolithic timber circle and later indications of agriculture. On the E side lay a street laid down at an early date and flanked by a ditch. In the first century lines of post-holes, probably mainly for fences, conformed with the street-alignment; traces of buildings occurred in the NW corner, where the floors were of chalk, and near the street, where rear areas had been scarped away for later buildings. Some of the larger pits were probably quarries for building-chalk. In the later period, four buildings, terraced successively up the slope, gradually expanded behind the street-frontage. Building 5 was mainly of one period with rooms on the N side of a corridor and a courtyard with a well to the south. Terracing for this house had almost destroyed an earlier stone building. Some infant burials were found. The structures in the NW corner are extensions of those on the N front of the insula examined at the Old Methodist Chapel site. In the post-Roman period the S part of the site became fields. (ii) At Alington Avenue (701899), 1 km south-east of the Roman town, a sequence of pre-Roman and Roman settlement ditches together with a late Iron Age burial of War Cemetery type were found. [excavation for the Trust for Wessex Archaeology and HBMC was directed by Miss S. M. Davies and Messrs P. J. Woodward and A. H. Graham. Miss Davies sent details and a plan.]