EDO5050 - Half Moon Street, Sherborne; observations during the excavation of a drainage trench

C.E. Bean observed the excavation of a drainage trench in Half Moon Street during 1955. Generally a band of white ? tufaceous material was overlain by black earth which was itself overlain by a 3ft build up of old road metalling. This directly lay below the modern road surface. This sequence was observed south of the church, opposite the Half Moon Hotel and ‘the bombed site’, outside the weighbridge and to the east adjoining the Almshouses. Furthermore, by the weighbridge at a depth of 3 ft. a quantity of black earth containing fragments of leather, nails, animal bone etc was observed. Disturbed human remains were also seen close to Messrs. Warr’s hairdresser’s shop. These deposits may relate to 19th century road widening works (1).