EDO4174 - Dorchester Police Headquarters, Weymouth Avenue, Dorchester; observations and recording 2001

The archaeological monitoring associated with the redevelopment of the Dorchester Police Headquartes site was carried out by AC archeology between April and June 2001, and followed on from an evaluation in November 2000. The site lies immediately outside the southern gates of the Roman town of Durnovaria, alongside the route of the Roman southern approach road into the town and close to where a number of Roman burials were uncovered during construction work in the 1950s. The work comprised observations of the excavations of footings for a new traffic station building, a new parade room, a new access road, a new undergound petrol storage tank and approximately 300m of service trenches. The work established extensive evidence for 19th-century and later disturbance across large parts of the site, likely to have removed all but the most substantial features. However, limited evidence for Romano-British activity was identified close to the known Roman road (Weymouth Avenue) comprising a truncated linear ditch parallel with the road. Any evidence for archaeological activity within the north of the site will have been substantially removed by the construction of a railway siding during the 19th century, with even the natural chalk significantly truncated at this time. Similarly, extensive modern disturbance, in this instance associated with the construction of the original Police Constabulary building, was recorded in the southern portion of the site. Across the remainder of the site, modern disturbance was present on a lesser scale, although no further pre-19th-century archaeological features were encountered.