EWX543 - Bowling Green, Wareham; excavation 1972

The Bowling Green was excavated in 1972 by M Parrington, on behalf of Wareham Borough Council and the Department of the Environment. The site was to be levelled and used as a playing field. The excavations, which lasted for three weeks, were concentrated in the north-eastern corner of the rectangular earthwork, since the bank was best preserved in this area. Three trenches were excavated. Trench 1 was a section through the bank and ditch, Trench 2 was in the interior, and Trench 3 examined the eastern entrance. The filling of the ditch consisted of a grey silty soil containing post-medieval pottery, tile, and clay pipe stems. A small quantity of post-medieval pottery and pipe stems were also recovered from the bank. Below the bank was a shallow 'marking out' ditch. Trench 2 was excavated down to natural; no features were discovered. Trench 3 revealed a similar stratigraphy to that observed in Trench 1, with a gap in the laying out trench. Medieval and post medieval pottery was recovered from the subsoil. The excavators found it difficult to come to firm conclusions about the date of construction of the Bowling Green, since the small amount of pottery recovered from the bank ranged from late medieval to around 1800 AD in date. They felt it was most likely to have been constructed in the mid eighteenth century, since the first documentary reference to it appears in 1746, it is marked on a map accompanying a document of 1753, and a comment by Hutchins suggests that it had gone out of use by 1774. A gravel layer on top of the bank was thought to represent a late attempt at stabilisation or creation of a path around the perimeter. The nature of the so-called entrances was not clear, as they are not shown on contemporary maps and no sign of a causeway was found in Trench 3 - the excavators thought them likely to have been worn down by 'traffic' on the footpath which crosses the earthwork, and the gap in the laying-out trench to represent the starting point for construction.