EDO3901 - Colliton Street, Dorchester; observations and recording 1997

In September 1997 Wessex Archaeology undertook a watching brief on four machine-dug trenches dug as part of improvements to two WDDC car parks in Colliton Street. Very little time was available for the observations. The four trenches showed varying degrees of archaeological significance. Trench 1 was located close to Colliton Street, adjacent to an existing wall and had suffered some truncation of deposits, which are of an unknown date and origin. Trench 2 was badly disturbed by the construction of a post-medieval brick wall and by Colliton Street and no deposits dated earlier than the post-medieval period were exposed. Trench 4 showed no sign of any deposits other than modern material. Only Trench 3 was located in an area of little previous disturbance and contained a 0.5m thick sequence of Roman deposits. There was little evidence for medieval or post-medieval deposits, but these may have been truncated. The most significant feature recorded in Trench 3 was a late Roman boundary ditch. The ditch probably dates to the fourth century AD and appears to run on a different alignment to the street grid of the Roman town. The ditch cut through earlier Roman deposits and was stratigraphically the latest Roman feature in the trench.