Monument record MDO8382 - Iron Age and Romano-British settlement and shale working site at Gallows Gore West, Worth Matravers

Iron Age and Romano-British settlement, inhumations and associated shale industry with finds of brooches, pottery and coins. Early Bronze Age inhumation found.

Iron Age "A" to late 4th century settlement, with evidence of shale armlet manufacture, discovered since 1931 over an area 220 yards by 100 yards, centred SY 9782 7901, west of Gallows Gore. Remains found include Iron Age and Romano-British storage pits and shale working floors, dry-stone walling of the 2nd century or later, 1st & 2nd century brooches and 3rd and 4th century coins. Several inhumation burials have been discovered, including one of a child with a brooch of circa AD 50-80, and the unlined grave of two females accompanied by Durotrigian ware and a mid-1st century Gallo-Belgic beaker. One of the Iron Age pits had penetrated an Early Bronze Age inhumation with a handled food-vessel. Finds are in the British Museum, Dorset County Museum, Poole Museum and Christchurch Museum. <1-6> The area indicated is now a fairly smooth pasture field; surface quarrying continues in fields to the east but nothing significant was noted. <7>

Record last edited

Apr 21 2023 6:31PM