SDO9658 - Fordington Farm Round Barrow. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society

Imminent re-development of the site by West Dorset District Council provoked the need for excavation of this extant round barrow. This confirmed the evidence of earlier trial trenching which identified the barrow as a complex multi-phase funerary monument, part of a linear cemetery on the crest of the Alington Ridge. Four constructional pahses were identified during excavation. The earliest was a small chalk mound with interrupted ditch sealing 2 pits containing disarticulated human bone. The 3 later phases all utilised the primary mound as a core with the monument being enlarged on each occasion to a final size of 48m diameter. Two further burial phases also survived; a crouched inhumation and a cremation in a collared urn. Elements of a later field system and drove way and an isolated RB burial were also recorded.