Happy New Year!

 BEST WISHES FOR 2025 FROM DORSET DIGGERS COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY GROUP!

KEEP LOOKING IN FOR ALL THE EXCITING NEWS OF OUR DIGS AND PROJECTS FOR THE COMING YEAR - IT'S GOING TO BE A BUSY ONE.

Roman eviction notice?

The view from the hill

A presentation on the Waddon Hill project was given on the 26th at Beaminster Museum by the Senior Archaeologist at Bournemouth University. What we know of the site is that it was a Roman barracks for infantry and cavalry not long after the invasion and that no evidence was found during the excavations of the 1960s to suggest that there was an Iron Age hillfort before that. However, it was shown that there is a bank that hugs the contours of part of the hill. As is well known the Roman army built their fortifications in straight lines and occupied strongholds of any tribe they wished to subdue and it would be unusual for them to occupy Waddon Hill as a 'virgin' site, so this may be the first evidence that the hill was already used and then converted for their use. 

Part of the project was to undertake some geophysical surveying (see the previous post on Waddon Hill) and that was carried out. It is now hoped to dig some test pits to see if any new information can be found about the Roman occupation and any further evidence for Iron Age use. DDCAG are going to be part of this investigation in 2025, so keep looking in for more news on this important site.    

   

A Ditch in Time?

The 5m square test trench has proved very fruitful. Ditch features and Early Medieval dating evidence has been produced and the evidence suggests that the ditches bordering the house platforms have been changed and enlarged over time, hence why the geophysics results for the ditch looked 'fuzzy'. 

In March 2025 we will open a 10m square trench and the archaeology will be much easier to see. We are all looking forward to it. Thanks to all the hard working volunteers that braved the horrible conditions.     

 

A Ditch in Time...

 

Despite the terrible conditions our valiant volunteers managed to do some sterling work on the E-W ditch yesterday. We are nearly done digging the sections through the fill and then recording can be undertaken. Drawings and photos can be created and levels taken. Some more pottery was unearthed and these will allow us to date the feature, but I would be surprised if they were not medieval. 

The theory at the moment is that this ditch was created to produce enough earth to build up the ground so that houses could be constructed above the wet surrounding landscape. 

The geophysics shows that a S-N ditch butts up to the E-W ditch (the darker thick lines) and the houses would have been constructed in the lower left and lower right of this image. Like the rest of the DMV to the East they would have faced the holloway to the south. The area to the North is very boggy and it would probably have been so in the medieval period too.    

Our first ditch!

The drainage ditch has worked very well and although we had to bail-out the dug features 90% of the water had run off down the incline, as planned.  

Once we had then cleaned the base of the trench we could see the linear feature running west-east. We started cutting slots and now have some nice sections to draw along its length. Importantly, we have some pottery fragments that will allow us to date the ditch. 

Although the conditions are challenging we also found another feature, but it is amorphous, so we will have to investigate this one later. 

We are now hoping that the rain will break for a few days (for a few weeks?) and we can continue to investigate the lives of the medieval people that once lived on this spot.  

   

All going swimmingly...

As you can see, we had the swimming pool problem again. So we have dug a drainage trench in one corner that runs down to the nearby pond and...

 ...success! We can now plan to dig the features and expand the trench soon.   

 

Potastic!

The good news is that we have managed to find some nice sherds of pottery from our first foray into looking for the DMV. Mostly Early Medieval, but also what looks like a couple of BBW sherds too. The experts will undoubtedly tell us more. 

 

Jolly fine boating weather...

 

Although the weather has been very wet and the underlying material is clay, we have found that there is a linear feature cutting the pink clay material and may be a surviving part of the surrounding ditches that were dug to make the house platforms to keep them above the wetter ground. 

However, when we turned up on site last Wednesday the trench had turned into a swimming pool! The forecast is for more wet weather for the next several days, so we may have to wait until the following week to return to work. 

First Features

At last! We have started excavating the non-scheduled DMV. However, the geology is clay, the archaeologists Nemesis. When dry it turns to concrete and when wet it can turn the trench into something from WW1. However, we can't choose to just work on nice soft stratigraphy, so on we go. A possible linear feature turned out to be a dud, but the orange clay and dark features are looking interesting. Once these features are excavated, interpreted and recorded we will expand the trench to 10m x 10m. Keep looking in for more news on this rare opportunity to research a DMV.  

 

DMV update

 

At the DMV site today we opened up a 2m x 5m trench and pottery started to come up very quickly, along with some features. 

So we then expanded the trench to 5m x 5m.

We then cleaned the base of the trench to highlight the features, these being a possible linear feature, two burnt clay areas and a dark semi-circular patch with concentrated charcoal inclusions. 

Considering that this is primarily supposed to be a medieval site these pottery examples look very early, but we will let an expert have a look and finalise the dates for all the fragments we found.   

There are now features to be dug and we will be back on site soon. 

 

Stone me!

 

We were looking for a possible Roman road on the high ground above the village, part of helping the Charmouth History Society in their researches. This is part of a project that will include small excavations in the village next year. However, as with much of archaeological research, nothing was found other than made up ground. Even so, local members were happy with their hours digging and being part of the project and both Groups are now going to plan The Big Garden Dig over the winter. This partnership will work to add more information to the story of this ancient settlement on the coast of Dorset.     

If at first you don't succeed...

After the disappointment of the first field at our DMV site on the Purbecks revealing that no archaeology existed there, we have now moved on to the next field and undertaken some more geophysics. This has proven to be more fruitful and some features have been identified.

A darker T-shaped signal may indicate the two house platforms that are located outside the scheduled area of the DMV and next week we are now going to excavate a trial trench to locate these features. We shall report our finding here. Fingers crossed.   

 

Pole position on the Grid

 

The Deserted Medieval Village (DMV) site on the Purbecks has had it's grid set out. The surviving house platforms are a scheduled monument, but we are looking at the area nearby to see if any sign of structures can be had in non-scheduled parts of the field.   

One interesting sign of activity are blocks of worked stone that are not natural to the area. Why are they here? Hopefully they are the remains of a building that once stood on the site, perhaps a chapel, as the common dwellings would have been of wood. 

We are planning to start work on the site a.s.a.p., so stay tuned.   

There we was, digging this 'ol...

Sherborne Bridewell

Three teams worked on the Sherborne Bridewell over three weekends looking for any structures that may have been connected to this early workhouse. Originally, the area was dominated by the Sherborne Monastery and the building we were investigating may have been a vicarage or priest's house for the church of St Andrew (long gone). It was turned into a 'Bridewell' which held various vagrants and people that would have been helped before the closing down of the the many religious establishments in the 16th century. The original was built in the parish of St Brides in London. It became a private house in 1794.

We undertook a geophysical survey in the gardens of the buildings (two dwellings) and a small survey in the garden fronting the buildings. Being a small area the results were not that clear. But we decided that two test trenches may bring up something of interest.

The first trench helped us to understand that the area was made up of 600mm of made-up ground and homogenous from top to bottom. The second trench in the next garden was also made-up ground and also 600mm deep. Plenty of small finds of various materials were turning up, but the only artefact of any age was a nice 17th century pipe bowel. The rest were either 19th or 20th century. The material in the second trench did prove to be sitting on a layer with plaster inclusions, but we could not excavate 600mm of dirt in such a small garden; the spoil heap would have been quite large and we did not want to do damage to the rest of the garden. 

As always with archaeology, you never know what is under the grass until you dig it!   

   

AGM 2024

 The DDCAG AGM took place and we discussed the forthcoming sites that we will be working on this year.

The DMV in East Dorset was presented as an exciting opportunity to research an important area of settlement in the county over several years. Our first job will be a geophysical survey and then we will concentrate on an area where features are located. 

Our collaboration with Bournemouth University will continue, as we look at an Iron Age/Roman site, with the geophysical survey done and test pits to follow. 

We are about to start our investigation at the Bridwell site on Sherborne. The geophiz showed some features that may be cess pits, so we will open a couple test pits. It is a well known trope that humans will always fill any holes in the ground with rubbish, and rubbish is our game! 

Close to Dorchester we will look at a site that was investigated in 2006, which found a Bronze Age burial in a garden. The owners now wish to see if any other features are there, so more test pitting for us.

We are in touch with two museums in Dorset, where we will be undertaking collaborations.

More walks and talks are planned, one walk being in Thorncombe Woods walking the Roman road and then looking at two Bronze Age barrows.    

We are hoping to have geophysical training days for members, so that we have a broad base of trained people for any sites we work on in future.

2024 is looking busy for our group and we look forward to doing some great research onto Dorset's past.

Sherborne Survey

We undertook a geophysical survey in Sherborne last week, looking for any evidence of structures and features behind buildings that date back to the 15th century. We are now planning to do one or two test pits looking at features that will hopefully contain dating evidence relating to pre- and post-dissolution activity on the site, thus adding information on this area to the archive.