SDO9724 - Recent Discoveries and Accessions; Inhumation Burials in Dorchester (i).

In June 1962, a water pipe trench along the east side of St. Thomas Road exposed part of an inhumation burial in its west face at a depth of about 4ft 6ins from the road surface (SY 68589066). The chalk-cut grave, approximately parallel with the road (NW-SE), was seen by Mr. R. N. R. Peers. It was about 5ft 4ins long with many of the bones still presumably in situ, and the skull was 'pushed forward', according to a wrokman, with face downwards. There were indications possibly of another burial, perhaps parallel, in the east face of the trench. The burial lies within 100 yards of Bridport Road on the line of the Roman Road to Exeter and doubtless belongs to a considerable but ill-recorded cemetery of the Roman town, burials having been noted in building along the Bridport Road, at the Barracks, in Corporation Yard, and in the Mountain Ash Road and Prospect Road NW of the present discovery.