SWX8626 - Hengistbury Head Outdoor Education and Field Studies Centre, Results of a Geophysical Survey and an Archaeological Evaluation

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned to undertake a geophysical survey and an archaeological evaluation of land at Hengistbury Head on behalf of Bournemouth Borough Council. The work was carried following advice of the Senior Archaeologist for Dorset County council that archaeological remains may be disturbed by a proposed development. A project design was prepared by Wessex Archaeology and approved by the Senior Archaeologist before the start of the work. The Site, centred on National Grid Reference (NGR) SZ 4164 0911, comprised an irregular trapezoidal area of c. 5.15 ha at the east end of the approach to Hengistbury Head on the outskirts of Christchurch. The land is currently occupied by a pitch and putt golf course. Hengistbury Head has been extensively occupied from the Upper Palaeolithic period and contains particularly important sites of Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age date. Finds of Neolithic and Bronze Age date, including cremation burials were known from the immediate vicinity of the development site and elsewhere along the approaches to Hengistbury Head. The results of the geophysical survey were inconclusive owing to service trenches and disturbances which had resulted from the construction of the pitch and putt course. The eight machine-excavated evaluation trial trenches showed that the earliest evidence of archaeological activity in the area related to Mesolithic occupation in the north-west corner of the site. A shallow pit with an Early Bronze Age Collared urn fragments, carbonized hazel nut shells and crab apples is considered to be of international significance. Elsewhere there was extensive evidence of Late Bronze Age to Middle Iron Age activity across the development area including a previously unrecorded ring ditch, 12 metres in diameter, which may be related to other Bronze Age burial mounds on the golf course. There was also a Late Bronze Age urn with cremated bone. The discovery of large assemblages of Iron Age pottery in two pits represents the first evidence of Iron Age activity west of the Double Dykes earthwork, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, which cross Hengistbury Head immediately to the east. A number of undated postholes were also discovered which suggest that structural remains are also present on the site.