Monument record MDO6043 - Enclosure near Badbury Rings, Shapwick

A feature depicted as a circular earthwork and called a ‘Roman amphitheatre’ on an 18th-century map. This monument was described as a horseshoe-shaped earthwork in 1954 and reported as surviving as a slight earthwork in 1987. Fieldwalking in 1987 recovered a small quantity of pottery, some of Bronze Age and others of Roman date. The enclosure is visible as cropmarks and earthworks on aerial photographs and lidar imagery and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AI&M Project. The record for this monument has been enhanced with support from Wessex Water.

Two mounds ('A' at ST 95390297 and 'B' at ST 95560281), suggesting barrows, are shown but not described. <1-2> 'A' No visible traces on the ground which is at present under crop. 'B' A horseshoe-shaped chalky bank at present under plough, orientated NW-SE, with measurable dimensions of 55.0m NW-SE by 47.0m NE-SW and circa 0.7m high by 10.0m wide, with an internal depression. A bump on the hedge and grass verge of the road suggests that the road has been built upon part of the earthwork. The feature does not conform with any known type of antiquity and the absence of puddled chalk appears to discount it as an old pond. <3> ST 95580281. Rectangular enclosure with one rounded corner shown on air photo, area 0.2ha. Exceptionally broad ditch or series of re-cuts; apparently integrated with linear ditch extending NE. <4-5> A C18th map describes the site ('B') at ST 9556 0281 as an amphitheatre and indeed its location is similar to the amphitheatres at Bath, Silchester and Dorchester. Field walking in 1987 gives site 'B' an estimated diameter of 80m. If this site proves then to be an amphitheatre, it raises questions about the status of Vindocladia/Badbury Rings (ST 90 SE 45), the size of which apparently would not warrant an amphitheatre. <10> A subsequent site record notes: "No visible trace in a field regularly ploughed, in established grass when visited. Ploughed out." Papworth MDJ/TWA 5.2.86 The enclosure is visible as cropmarks and earthworks on aerial photographs <11> and lidar imagery <12> and was digitally plotted during the Dorset Middle Stour AI&M Project. It is a rectilinear banked enclosure (the bank still slightly extant on lidar imagery), with traces of internal and external flanking ditches visible as cropmarks. The internal dimensions are 42m by 33m. A Middle Bronze Age enclosure at Crab Farm surveyed and excavated in 1987-8 and subject to some further geophysical survey in 1990-1. An interim report on the excavations incorrectly described the site as a Neolithic hengiform monument, while the site had previously attracted attention through the use of the word "amphitheatre" to describe it on 18th century maps. This is probably an indication of the degree of survival of the earthworks at the time. The earliest features noted during the excavations were some shallow interconnecting scoops containing some struck flint. There were also traces of a possible earlier enclosure on a slightly different alignment. A v-shaped flat-bottomed ditch was also located. This had been fully backfilled before it was cut by a pit containing the articulated skeleton of a pregnant ewe. Another pit contained the skeleton of a sheep. Both produced radiocarbon dates in the later 2nd millennium BC. The enclosure itself appears to have been defined by inner and outer ditches up to 15 metres apart, possibly separated by a bank. Deliberate backfilling appears to have been followed by the burial of a pregnant cow, with a radiocarbon date similar to the other two animal burials. All three cluster in the period 1400-1000 BC (calibrated). Later activity is represented by a few Late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman sherds plus a Roman coin (Claudius Gothicus - AD 268-70). <14>

Record last edited

Jul 20 2023 4:36PM