SDO11547 - An Archaeological Field Evaluation of the Proposed Development of Land at Stainer's Yard, Bell Street, Shaftesbury, Dorset

The archaeological field evaluation of an area of land totalling 220m2 known as Stainer's Yard, Bell Street, Shaftesbury was carried out by AC archaeology during November 1998. The work comprised the machine-excavation of three trenches, all located in the southern portion of the site - under the footprint of the proposed new dwelling. The site is positioned in an area of the town where very little systematic archaeological investigation has previously been carried out, on the eastern edge of the historic core of Shaftesbury, within the conservation area of the town. An earlier, largely desk-based assessment of the site concluded that the proposed development area lies within a part of the town where there is potential for the presence of important archaeological remains, most likely of medieval or ealy post-medieval date, but potentially of any period from the later prehistoric onwards. The evaluation identified structural evidence in two trenches, which comprised a pitched stone hearth in Trench 1, located in the central S end of the site and portions of two conjoining walls in Trench 3 to the NW of the hearth. There was no structural evidence in Trench 3 to the east of the hearth, although a sequence of soil layers was present which dated from the medieval period through to the present day. The archaeological evidence indicates, that the building identified in trenches 1 and 2 is of early post-medieval date, as there were no apparent earlier (medieval), or later (19th-century) structural components present and that the buildng was constructed directly onto natural subsoil. Later medieval pottery was recovered from the site, but was only present in buried soil layers or in residually later contexts. It is probable that the structural components on the site relate to a building recorded on a map of 1799, but not shown on an earlier map of 1615. The pottery recovered susggests that the building is likely to have been constructed during the early part of the 17th-century rather than the latter prt of the 18th-century. A map of 1817 shows that this building had by then been demolished, and the only building shown is an outbuildng in the SW corner of the site, likely to be the same building which is currently standing. The 1615 map shows the site as fields adjacent to properties on both the west and east sides, and there is no reason based on the excavated evidence, that the site was used for anything other than agricultural purposes before 1615.