EDO5051 - South Street, Sherborne; observation of a drainage trench

C E Bean observed a drainage trench dug in South Street during 1955. He recorded a 3ft thick layer of road metalling underlying the modern road surface, which he suggested might represent the infilling of a former roadside ditch. 12th century pottery was recovered from the top of the gravels which lay directly below the road metalling. Similar thicknesses were observed at Ludbourne Hall, by the Woolmington Hotel and opposite Gainsborough House, about 215 yards from the north gate of the railway crossing. Here the metalling was iron stained and littered with brass pins with spherical wound wire heads. In 1933 similar material was observed at a depth of 2 ft. near the garage gate of the Mitre Inn at the junction of Westbury and Lower Acreman Street. Here a larger quantity of pins of the same sort were observed together with some larger ones and cuttings of brass strip or wire. The British Museum suggested they were 16th-17th century in date, backed up by the associated pottery (1).