Monument record MDO7469 - Roman occupation and shale working site, Norden, Corfe Castle

Remains of a Romano-British occupation and shale working site are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs and Lidar imagery of Norden. These features were digitally plotted during the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project.

Area centred SY 959825. Dish of Kimmeridge shale, bronze compasses and Roman coins found when lowering the hill north of King Edward's Bridge. Now in Dorchester Museum. <1> Two Romano British shale plaques, one circular, found before 1859 with a pair of bronze dividers in lowering the road north west of St Edward's Bridge. (sited to SY 958826 and therefore undoubtedly part of the Norden industrial site - see SY 98 SE 24). <9> (Centred SY 958826) Inhumation burials, floors and occupation debris, including objects from a Kimmeridge shale industry, have been found above the 50 ft contour in the Norden Clay Works some 300 yds N of the Corfe gap in the chalk range. More recent finds have been made between the clay pits beside the Wareham road. Remains of a stone paved floor were found at SY95788261, and a small cist containing Romano-British sherds at SY 95648265. A chalk and limestone floor was also uncovered at 95948264. A deposit of chalk and limestone capped with small stone bricks was found to the SW of the road at SY 95558266. The deposit overlay Roman material including a coarse ware sherd and part of a shale plaque. A piece of shale table leg and some small siltstone cubes were unstratified. Cores from turned shale armlets are said to have been common at Norden. A stone cist, some RB pottery, a fragment of glass, animal bones and an iron arrow-head were found at 95648265 in 1967. Slag from smelting was common, but the most striking industrial waste was from the manufacture of Purbeck marble, mud stone and chalk inlays of various thickness. A selection of finished and unfinished bowls, a chalk working floor and a dump of chalk tesserae were found at SY95648271 in 1969. <8> <9> <10> <12> Listed by Swan as a possible kiln producing (?)Black-Burnished Ware I. <14> Remains of a Romano-British occupation and shale working site are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs <19> and Lidar imagery <20> of Norden, Corfe Castle. These features were digitally plotted during the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project.

Record last edited

Mar 2 2024 7:18AM