EDO4232 - Maiden Castle Road First School, Dorchester; evaluation 1992

An archaeological evaluation of an area of c. 1.44 ha , including part of a cropmark settlement of presumed Iron Age or Romano-British date, was undertaken by AC archaeology in 1992. The evaluation comprised a grid of 8 interconnecting 2m wide trenches, totalling a length of about 900m. This evaluation revealed parts of two ditched enclosures together with linear features presumed to form a trackway. The most coherent enclosure (Enclosure 1), within which excavation revealed traces of two hut platforms and pits, lies in the northeastern corner of the site. Excavation revealed traces of pits and two hut platforms, for which associated pottery suggests a date in the later Iron Age or earliest part of the Roman period. Other, probably contemporary, hut platforms were recorded to the southwest of Enclosure 1. A second enclosure (Enclosure 2) lay only partly within the evaluation area, but would also seem to be of late Iron Age/early Roman date.