EDO3964 - Land South-west of Poundbury Farm; Evaluation Trench 17

Wessex Archaeology undertook an archaeological trial trench evaluation on an area of land to the southwest of Poundbury Farm, Dorchester, Dorset, which formed part of the proposed Phase II Poundbury development. The archaeological evaluation, consisting of 65 machine-excavated trial trenches (1.76% of the site), was undertaken during two periods in February and April 2001. The trenches were located in order to investigate cropmarks, as well as providing a good general coverage of the evaluation area. A few later trenches were positioned to investigate further salient archaeological features. All trenches were excavated by machine to the top of the archaeology or natural deposits and measured approximately 30m x 1.8m. Trench 17 was aligned NW-SE, S of Poundbury Farm and excavated to a depth of 0.5m on to natural chalk. A single large pit (at least 5m diameter, 1.78m deep with irregular vertical sides) cut the natural at the NW end of the trench. The upper fill of which contained 3 sherds of Romano-British pottery. It may represent a prehistoric flint quarry.