Monument record MDO37371 - Ring ditch, south of Bishops Court Farm, Shapwick

A circular ring ditch visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs. This was excavated by AC archaeology during the construction of a new Wessex Water pipeline. No internal features were found inside the ditch. This may have originally been a round barrow but all trace of the mound has been ploughed away. No secure dating evidence was found. The record for this monument has been created with support from Wessex Water.

A Bronze Age round barrow was recorded as cropmarks on 2015 Historic England oblique aerial photographs. It is defined by a ring ditch with a diameter of about 25m-30m. It is centred at ST 9364 0249. <1> A plough-levelled round barrow with an estimated diameter of c 23 metres, faintly visible as a circular, annular cropmark on aerial photographs dated 2005. No evidence for surviving bank or mound material could be discerned, and no associated features were noted. <2> This monument was recorded as a pennanular positive geophysical anomaly (anomaly 275) during the geophysical survey undertaken along the route of a new water supply main between the Wessex Water works at Corfe Mullen, Dorset to Camp Hill Storage Tank near Salisbury, Wiltshire in 2012. <3> The ring ditch was excavated by AC archaeology as part of the archaeological mitigation of the Wessex Water Corfe Mullen to Salisbury Transfer Scheme. The full extent of the ring ditch was not exposed, but was calculated to be about 20 m in diameter. Five slots were cut through the ditch, showing that it was up to 2.5 m wide with generally steep or moderately sloping sides and a broad flat base 0.8 m deep. It was filled with dark silty clays containing some worked flint. The excavators noted an absence of chalk rubble in the fill which would indicate the erosion of the central mound and interpreted this as either the ditches were cleaned out or the mound was relatively low feature, perhaps a disc or saucer barrow. No internal features were present. No dating evidence was recovered. <4> The record for this monument has been created with support from Wessex Water.

Record last edited

Feb 13 2023 4:56PM