EDO4574 - 6 North Square, Dorchester; observations and recording 1977

Mr Woodward observed the conversion of 6 north Square into a restaurant during 1977. this involved the building of an extension to the rear and adjacent to the north of the existing building. These works produced evidence relating to the medieval castle and the Roman town. the information was recovered by recording builder's trench sections and more careful hand excavation in places as building work allowed. The edge of an E-W ditch was noted in section and plan and identified as the castle ditch by comparison with sections excavated elsewhere (PDNHAS 97, 75). No dating evidence was recovered and most of this section of the ditch now lies under Colliton Street. 6m inside the castle ditch an apsaidal wall of coursed limestone with flint footings was cut through earlier Roman floor levels. This wall was at a right angle to an earlier wall of limestone with herring-bone coursing and flint footings, against which it butted. This wall was contemporary with the Roman floor levels. These structures were datable to the 2nd century AD and were cut by medieval and post-medieval pits. The structures were situated on an artificial clay platform which sealed earlier post pits and a N-S aligned ditch conforming to the grid of the Roman town.