EDO6104 - Former Royal Mail Sorting Office, Wick Lane, Christchurch; trial trenching 2010

The work took place prior to development of the site and following a desk-based assessment of the archaeological potential of the site. Two trenches measuring 10m long by 1.6m wide were excavated mechanically in the open yard area of the former Sorting Office. The evaluation exposed a sequence of stratified archaeological features, deposits and layers of medieval and later date that were broadly consistent with the results of previous archaeological work. Dated features were only recorded from Trench 1 and were a medieval ditch and pit containing 15th to early 16th century pottery, bone and a roofing slate suggestive of domestic waste. The ditch had been recut possibly in the 18th century as a redefining of the boundary. A further ditch aligned with the ditch above was partially exposed at the south-west end of Trench 1 and pottery contained in it suggested that it had been backfilled with rubbish in the 18th to early 19th century. It truncated a pit containing pottery which suggested it was open in the 15th to early 16th century. Although some of the ditch had therefore been excavated between those dates, the dating suggested that it was not part of the medieval defensive system believed to cross the site. Soil samples were examined and were similar enough to suggest mixing since initial deposition. Thick deposits of gravel in both trenches were felt to be geological in nature. There was some evidence of cellaring in Trench 2 related to the former brewery buildings on the site.