Poole Harbour: Corfe, Frome and Piddle

The rivers Piddle and Frome dominate the western sector of the Solent basin. They flow into Poole Harbour at Wareham: the Piddle to

The Solent Basin 61 the north of the burh walls and the Frome to

the south. At the very mouth of these dual river systems lies Bestwall Quarry, in effect sited on a natural peninsula jutting into the waters of Poole Harbour, like the Saxon town, flanked on either side by the great rivers. Rich alluvial capping hides a gravel rich substrata and in 1969 (before the advent of planning stipulations on archaeological assessments) one hundred and fifty hectares was acquired with planning permission for gravel extraction. The site has been excavated over a 12 year period by a dedicated team of volunteers backed by the support and voluntary co-operation of the quarry company, Aggregate Industries. Excavation has shown two major periods of activity on this natural choke point;

first, in the Middle Bronze Age when a substantial settlement was established, and later in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, when Bestwall inhabitants worked in the Black Burnished Ware industry.

In between those phases of intense activity there is limited evidence of pottery production and farming in the Early Iron Age and only a single feature securely dated to the Middle Iron Age (Ladle 2003).

Bronze Age permanent land division at Bestwall started with the construction of a 750m long Early Bronze Age discontinuous ditch and was followed by the construction of a Middle Bronze Age coaxial field system with storage pits being cut into the gravels (ibid. 265). The Middle Bronze Age dating evidence is all pervasive with pottery, quernstones, fire fractured and worked flint littering the site (Ladle and Woodward 2003, 270). This rich assemblage of material culture is also accompanied by individual finds of bronze metalwork (ibid. 269). The land boundaries contain Deverel-Rimbury ceramics, often with sherd concentrations towards the terminal ends of ditches. Dumps of clay in working hollows suggest pottery production into the Late Bronze Age but most of the material is attributable to the Middle Bronze Age, including quantities of shale sourced from Purbeck and granite quernstones originating from Cornwall.

From Wareham the journey out to the sea involves a further 10km of navigation across one of the most sheltered stretches of estuary on the south coast. Bestwall was ideally placed at a key flow point for wider exchange. Upstream along the Piddle lies Tolpuddle Ball, evidence here of a Late Bronze Age field system was recorded in advance of the construction of the bypass. Its discovery

adds to existing knowledge of field systems on the Dorset Downs (Terrain Archaeology 1999).

The Frome valley may be of greater significance.

Developer-funded projects have revealed field divisions along the length of this wide river corridor. A short lived Early Bronze Age field system was recorded at Warmwell Quarry near to Moreton. The absence of ditch recutting here, together with some evidence that settlement expanded over abandoned fields suggests that initial forest clearance created a fertile terrain but that cultivation soon impoverished the light soils (Ellis 1994, 5). On the Dorset heathland, funerary sites, especially barrows, are very prominent whereas settlement and farming evidence is rare.

As Ellis points out this contrasts somewhat with the situation on the surrounding chalk downs, where small settlements associated with Celtic fields are fairly well known. This is what makes Warmwell such a significant discovery (ibid. 6). A similarly dated Early Bronze Age site lies west, on the southern terrace of the South Winterbourne Valley near West Stafford. Here elements of a field system and possible trackway were located (Wessex Archaeology 1994c, 4).

Poole Harbour is one of the largest and shallowest natural harbours in the world. Bestwall may be one of a number of Later Bronze Age farming sites on the perimeter of the open waters.

Works associated with the expansion of the Wytch Farm oilfield identified an Early/Middle Bronze Age field system around the next headland at a site named East of Corfe River illustrated in Figure 7.2 (Cox and Hearne 1991). The ditches were difficult to distinguish from the pale Eocene sands into which they were cut. They were short lived and subject to rapid refilling (ibid. 44). They were dateable in part because a second phase of Middle Bronze Age features and burnt spreads of a funerary nature capped them (ibid. 34). A burnt oak stake associated with this sealing material yielded a radiocarbon determination of 1460–

1200 cal. BC (UB- 3219; 3081±51 BP). The Early/

Middle Bronze Age field system appears to have extended on to the opposite bank of the river at New Mills Heath (ibid. 46). At Bestwall Quarry there was little evidence for Early or Middle Iron Age occupation. At East of Corfe River there was none. The next phases of formal landscape here were created in the Late Iron Age and Romano-British era (Figure 7.2).

Land, Power and Prestige 62

7.6 Dorchester

The county town of Dorchester is 20km up stream from Wareham. It is here that commercial work is disclosing the full extent of Bronze Age land appropriation. An extensive Later Bronze Age field system was constructed on the central lowlands around the west and south of the town.

Commercial discoveries started with the bypass works (Smith et al. 1997) and now have extended within the phased development of the Duchy of Cornwall Poundbury project.

Within a square kilometre at Poundbury, a series of excavations have recorded elements of the new permanently established farming regime of the late second and early first millennium BC. At two sites within Poundbury Farm, components of the Middle/Late Bronze Age ditched field system were recorded together with parts of a possible curvilinear enclosure of the same date (Wessex

Archaeology 2001). One kilometre to the NE at the proposed Sports Centre a well defined ditched field system was again planned and sectioned.

Pottery of mostly Early to Middle Bronze Age date was recovered from a NE/SW coaxial field system. An associated enclosure and building endured into the Late Bronze Age (Wessex Archaeology 1997d, 21). All of these excavations suggest a heavily utilised environment by or during the Later Bronze Age. They provide a fascinating insight into the prehistory of landscape development within this area. This is best seen in the landscape palimpsest recorded at the Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester (Smith 2000). The first construction phase comprises the sinking of a series of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age pits containing both material of a domestic and a ceremonial nature. This is followed by a phase of monument building; a series of at least eight Early Bronze Age barrows formed a visually spectacular Figure 7.2 East of Corfe River. Derived from Cox and Hearne 1991, Figure 17. There are clear indications that the Bronze Age ditches were subject to rapid refilling, reflecting the rapid deterioration and displacement of the tilled soils. Such intensity of later prehistoric activity was not matched again until the first century BC, to be followed in turn by a further superimposed field system in the second century AD

The Solent Basin 63 arrangement of skyline monuments ranged along

the ridge linking Mount Pleasant, Maumbury Rings and Thomas Hardye School. Some of these lost barrows (hidden until commercial work revealed their remaining traces) matched in size the massive barrows that still tower above the area surrounding Maiden Castle. In turn these monuments were eclipsed by the farming grids of Later Bronze Age date: boundaries which were eventually overlain by new Late Iron Age/

Romano-British fields. The shallow ditches of the open medieval fields of the manor of Fordington or components of the post enclosure field system represented yet another form of landscaping (Smith 2000, 74). This is a remarkably interesting site because of these recorded phases. At various stages a grand design has been executed – the coaxial fields of the Later Bronze Age and then those of the Late Iron Age, followed eventually by the manorial apportionment of land and now the execution of an architectural grand design for a new Poundbury.

One component is missing from this fascinating landscape prehistory. Poundbury is within sight of the one of the largest Middle Iron Age hillforts in Europe and yet there is no evidence of Middle Iron Age Celtic fields. This is a consistent pattern revealed throughout this research and is confirmed with dramatic effect in the extra-mural lands of Maiden Castle.

The attraction of coastal locations is evident, particularly the river corridors of the Stour and Frome, starting at Christchurch and Poole Harbour. Further west, other indications of the preference for direct links to the sea include a Late Bronze Age occupation site at Sutton Poyntz close to the River Jordan which runs into Weymouth Bay (Wessex Archaeology 1993b). Even further along the coast at Bridport elements of a rectilinear field system were sectioned in a 1.87% assessment of land set aside for a new Community Hospital on a ridge overlooking the west bank of the River Brit (AC Archaeology 1991).