EWX1307 - Church House, Wimborne Minster; excavation of foundation trench 1991

The foundation trench for an extension was excavated by Wessex Archaeology, to meet a condition of planning permission. Church House is close to Wimborne Minster, in an area deemed to be archaeologically sensitive. The trench was 0.8m wide and dug to a depth of 1m into the natural gravel. Two graves were encountered, but neither could be fully excavated or closely dated, owing to the constraints of the exercise. The graves must have been earlier than a house which is known to have been standing on the site in 1617. One of the graves had been disturbed by a later rubbish pit. Three bowl-shaped rubbish pits contained fragments of animal bone, oyster shells, sherds of glazed pottery, and the stems of clay tobacco pipes. A fourth, roughly-square, feature cut through the filling of one of the rubbish pits was interpreted as a post hole. Project also funded by Pantlin and Bradbury Architects. Site code: W438/34332.