EDO4317 - Southern Dorchester By-pass evaluation Trench FR9, Flagstones

A trial trench was excavated roughly N-S up the upper north-facing slopes of the ‘Alington ridge’, to the north of the railway line. At the southern end of the trench, on the top of the ridge, an E-W extension was dug to investigate a series of features exposed. This trial trench (FR9) was partly sited to investigate a large enclosure revealed by geophysical survey on the top of the ridge (1). It was excavated as part of the evaluation of the route of the Southern Dorchester By-pass by Wessex Archaeology during 1987 and subsequently included within the large-scale excavations at Flagstones in 1987 (2). A large number of archaeological features were exposed at the southern end of this trench. This includes a number of E-W aligned field boundary ditches and one N-S ditch. These were subsequently identified during the main excavations as being part of an Iron Age field system and also a medieval field system. Part of the segmented ditch of the Flagstones Neolithic enclosure was also revealed. The results of this evaluation have been incorporated with the results of the main Flagstones excavations and published together (2).