EDO3730 - Wessex Court, Charles Street, Dorchester; Trench 1

Trench 1, together with Trenches 2 and 3, comprised the first phase of archaeological excavations conducted by Wessex Archaeology in 1989, in advance of the proposed Wessex Court retail development in Charles Street, Dorchester. Trench 1 was located at the northern end of the development area, close to the area of the Greyhound Yard excavations, in order to clarify the line of the Dorchester Late Neolithic Timber Monument. Five Neolithic post pits were found on a similar, gently curving, alignment to that at Greyhound Yard. They were associated with a small external ditch. Part of an early Roman timber building comprising a chalk floor, postholes and a slot was revealed but most of the early Roman soil levels had been removed by later terracing. Evidence for parts of three Late Roman stone buildings were recovered from Trench 1. These had been heavily robbed and only one small length of mortared flint walling survived (complete with some in situ painted wall plaster). Two of the structures had no surviving floor surfaces and the third had only soil layers surviving within it. Medieval and post-medieval levels were absent, partly because of modern disturbance, but also because the level of natural chalk was relatively close to the modern ground surface.