EDO4483 - Beggar's Knap, Great Western Road, Dorchester; casual observation 1889

Inhumations, and one child cremations, found in the 1880s in building houses on Beggar's Knap or Nap along the south side of Great Western Road [1]. An unstated number of burials were found in 1881 in the chalk from which the counterscarp bank of the Roman town of Durnovaria was formed. It is not clear whether these burials were below the bank or cut into it. The heads tended to be to the west and resting on stone. Several urns and a patera were found with them and a child's cremation placed in an urn and covered by a well chiselled stone. Cunnington refers to the same locality in recording three skeletons in December 1881 in digging a cellar near Mentone Lodge (in the counterscarp of the ditch). Associated pottery included a 4th century flanged rim. The cellar is that of number 5 or 6 Great Western Road. Metal finds such as angle irons and hooked fittings suggest coffined burials. The cemetery seems to have been in use in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, although one or more of Cunnington's were probably of the 4th century.