SWX8573 - Easton Fire Station, Portland. Report on a desk-based appraisal and archaeological evaluation

‘Gifford and Partners Ltd have been commissioned by Housing 21 working on behalf of the landowner (Weymouth and Portland Borough Council) to carry out a programme of desk-based appraisal and archaeological evaluation across the site currently occupied by Old Easton Fire Station and including an area of light woodland immediately to the east of the fire station. The fieldwork was carried out during July 2000 and resulted in the preparation of this illustrated report which forms the bulk of the archive to be deposited with the Dorset County Museum Service. The Dorset Record Office was consulted for documentary and specifically cartographic/aerial photographic evidence to support the preparation of the report. Any historic maps pertaining especially to mining or quarrying activity were consulted and where possible either traced or photocopied. The desk-based appraisal ran concurrently with the archaeological evaluation and provided valuable documentary evidence regarding the site’s past possible use as a quarry with stone storage areas in the woods to the east of the standing fire station buildings. Trench 1 and 2 (each measuring approximately 10m x 4m) were located close to the 1940’s fire station buildings with two small test pits (each measuring 2m x 2m) located in the woodland to the east of the fire station buildings. In Trench 1 natural brickearth was encountered 800mm below the tarmac surface, no significant features were observed cutting into the brickearth. The stone foundations (reinforced with iron bars) for a post-Medieval structure were also observed in this trench. In Trench 2 large quantities of Portland stone had been used to backfill a large trench (the southern side of this cut was observed in section). It is not known how large this stone-filled feature is, but it appears to have had significant structural effect on the brick-built buildings of the fire station with large cracks clearly visible in all of the brick structures. In the woodland to the east the two test pits were located to minimise the impact of any excavation on the standing trees, which, as they are standing in a Conservation Area, are protected. Both of these pits encountered an extremely compact layer of Portland stone 200mm below the surface. In one pit excavation reached 400mm below the surface. At this depth the compact Portland stone layer continued to dominate the section and further excavation was halted. This layer was thought to represent a spread of quarry material across the site thus further supporting the argument that the area had been heavily impacted upon by historic and previously unrecorded quarrying activity. On this basis it is highly probable that the site is of negligible archaeological potential.’