EDO7614 - 13 Parsons Pool, Shaftesbury; observations and recording 2002

Observations and recording by Place Archaeological Consultants Ltd for Philip Proctor Associates during digging of a foundation trench for a new boundary wall to 13 Parsons Pool, to inform a planning application for an adjacent site, formerly the garden of Parsons Pool House. The trench, approximately 500mm wide and 600-1000mm deep was dug from the rear (east) boundary to close to the street frontage at the west. A dark yellow-brown very sandy clay with very frequent angular sandstone lumps, taken to be natural sub-soil, was overlain for most of the trench by a dark green-grey silty clay which varied in thickness, overlain by a layer around 450mm thick of dark grey-brown sandy silt. Broken tile and clay was abundant; the few artefacts seen were mostly nineteenth- and twentieth-century china fragments and occasional sherds of earthenware pottery of post-medieval/modern date. No in situ medieval material was observed. Towards the street frontage a change was observed, suggesting localised dumping of soil and rubble to raise the ground level. This was cut by a ditch that ran obliquely across the trench, which was also cut by a substantial utility trench.