SDO9891 - 'Roman Britain in 1971: Southern Counties' Britannia

Brief catalogue of archaeological works carried out on Roman sites in Britain during 1971. This includes the following notes on sites in Dorchester (page 345), reproduced here in full. Dorchester (SY691906): (i) an area excavation in Messrs Applegates’ premises at 34 Trinity Street, uncovered the remains of two successive first-century timber buildings replaced (probably in the late second century) by a stone-built courtyard-house with foundations 0.9m deep and 0.7m wide. These buildings had stood on the west side of a N-S street at least 4m wide, constructed in the late 1st-century and once remetalled. The insula bounded by this street had a width of c65m. (ii) At the former vicarage, Fordington High Street (SY697906), outside the NE defences of the town, trenching revealed two cremations and eighteen inhumations, belonging to the extensive cemetery already known. There was no regular orientation; most of the inhumations were in wooden coffins, but a few skeletons were flexed. One had the head severed and placed between the knees. The meagre pottery associated with the burials was of the first to fourth centuries.