Monument record MDO5931 - Romano-British settlement at Bokerley Junction, Woodyates, Pentridge

Pits, ditches, burials and occupation debris excavated by General Pitt-Rivers in 1888-90 and by Philip Rahtz in 1958. A settlement lyine on either side of Bokerley Dyke at the point known as Bokerley Junction where the Blandford to Salisbury road crosses the county boundary between Dorset and Wiltshire. Finds indicate occupation between AD 275 and 400, though a small amount of Iron Age pottery and a burial with a 1st-century AD brooch were found.

General Pitt-Rivers tentatively suggested Woodyates, an RB village on Bokerly Dyke as the identification of Vindocladia (Bindogladia) but the site is probably at Badbury Rings (ST 90 SE 45) where there is an important Roman road junction. Excavated by General Pitt-Rivers in 1888-90 largely to date Bokerley Dyke. <1> <5> Only the extension of the main settlement was excavated. The coin distributions on the ground made it almost certain that the main centre of occupation was in an arable field directly to the south of the excavated area of the dyke, ie the crossing of Bokerley Dyke and the Roman Road. This field has not been excavated. There was a thin scatter of coarse IA pottery but coins indicated that serious settlement did not take place before AD 275; of a total of 1200 coins only 18 were from Trajan to Severus Alexander. Of the area excavated the main plan consisted of a drainage system which formed rectilinear enclosures. At 'A' (SU 03061998) a corn-drying furnace was found and in the vicinity eleven pits and hearths. There were numerous burials, mostly extended inhumations in later Roman manner but at 'B' (SU 03291997) a pit contained a contracted skeleton in native or early Roman style. It had a Claudian brooch against its hip. At 'C' (SU 03231999) was a cremation in a dug-out coffin. Five inhumations were in a rectangular ditched cemetery. The site grew essentially as a Roman road-side settlement. It may be Vindogladia but if so there is a discrepancy of 20 miles in the distance from Sarum to Dorchester in the Antonine Itinerary. Mr G H Wheeler believes Vindogladia to be at Badbury Rings. By circa AD 325 it had become more than a simple roadside settlement and had busy and populous occupation. <3> <4> The area was partly under the plough and partly under grass. There were no surface finds or other indications of settlement. <6> Excavations carried out in 1958 before the widening of the Blandford-Salisbury Road at Bokerly Corner. These served to reinforce the findings of Pitt-Rivers. Pits, hearths, ditches a corn drying oven, and a skeleton associated with pottery and coins, mainly Constantinian, were uncovered. A bronze statuette and 19 coins, of which only one was post-370 date, were also found. "No more evidence has been found to show that it was anything more than a 'native settlement' or 'Romano-British village' with a loosely-knit agricultural economy". <7> No further information and nothing surveyable in Hants. <10> ROMANO-BRITISH SETTLEMENT (034197), at Woodyates, is indicated by pits, ditches, burials and occupation debris excavated by Gen. Pitt-Rivers in 1888-90 and by P. A. Rahtz in 1958. The site lies on either side of Bokerley Dyke, around the point known as Bokerley Junction, where the Roman road from Old Sarum to Dorchester passes through the dyke. Apart from a little Iron Age pottery, a burial with a brooch of the 1st century A.D., and some sherds and coins of the 1st and 2nd centuries, all the finds indicate occupation from about 275-400. Their distribution suggests that the most intensive activity was W. of the Roman road and S. of Bokerley Dyke. And the large number of coins (over 1,200), mostly of the 4th century, may suggest a market or a shrine. To the N. of the dyke several roughly rectangular enclosures were formed by ditches 10 ft. wide and 2 ft. to 5 ft. deep. Among them were eleven pits, hearths, a corn-drying oven and 'occasional' burials. An inhumation cemetery with burials orientated E.-W., perhaps Christian, occupied a square enclosure 112 ft. by 120 ft., with a dtich 6 ft. wide and 3 ft. deep. The roughly rectangular enclosures may have extended further W. and E. To the S. were fifteen similar pits, ditches, hearths, another oven, and a burial. A bronze figurine of Venus was found on the edge of Bokerley Dyke (16). At this point the dyke was cut through occupation debris in c.A.D. 330, extended through the settlement in 367, and was realigned after 393. Finds are in Farnham Museum in D.C.M. and in B.M. (Pitt-Rivers, Excavations III (1892), 3-239; Haekes, Arch.J., CIV (1947), 62-78; Rahtz, Ibid., CXVIII (1961), 65-99.). <11>

Record last edited

Feb 28 2023 1:44PM