EDO6708 - Wimborne St Giles Park; geophysical survey

A detailed gradiometer survey of around 1.6 hectares of parkland at St Giles House was commissioned by Chris Burnett Associates on behalf of the Shaftsbury Estate. The aim was to establish the presence and nature of detectable archaeological features on the site ahead of the construction of a proposed relief culvert to the west of the house. The site is currently used as parkland, relatively level and under pasture, with the southern part of the survey area occupied by sparse woodland and rhododendrons. The survey comprised a 30m wide swathe of around 1.1ha centred on the line of the proposed culvert and 0.5 ha to the south of St. Giles House where a possible eastern extension of an original culvert leading to a water feature of a parkland grotto may have been situated. The survey used a Bartington Grad601-2 dual fluxgate gradiometer system in good conditions. Several anomalies of probable archaeological origin were detected in the north-western and southern areas, although magnetic disturbance from modern services including a digester and an area of possible landscaping or rubble dumping prevented conclusive interpretation. Part of the site could not be surveyed due to the presence of dense bushes, outbuildings and a track. The small supplementary survey to determine the location of a possible branch culvert feeding a water feature in a grotto about 275m east of the current culvert revealed two linear anomalies consistent with buried culverts or the remnants of infilled channels on the approximate orientation expected of this culvert.