SDO12216 - Land at Sherring's Green Close, Blandford Road, Puddletown, Dorset. Archaeological Evaluation

Archaeological evaluation was undertaken in a field, known as Sherring’s Green Close, off Blandford Road, Puddletown. A number of earthwork banks and lynchets survive in this field. They were surveyed by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England in 1988. Four machine trenches were excavated by Terrain Archaeology in August 2000 to evaluate the earthworks. The evaluation revealed that only one of the earthworks was associated with sub-surface features- a boundary ditch and hedge. The lynchets and other earthworks were entirely composed of agricultural soils. These earthworks all appear to be post-medieval in date. Beneath the agricultural soils a number of archaeological features was discovered. In the south-western part of the field, a complex of possible palisade ditches and gullies was exposed in trench 1. The interpretation of these features is difficult on present evidence and their date is uncertain. It has been tentatively proposed that they are prehistoric, perhaps Bronze Age in date, and are part of a palisaded enclosure or round barrow. A late medieval boundary ditch was discovered in Trench 3 in the north-western part of the field.