Details

This major chalk bluff overlooking the river Frome has provided a focus of
human settlement for over 4,000 years. It includes evidence of a Neolithic
settlement of the 3rd millennium BC; a substantial Bronze Age occupation with
hut plans, pits and field systems; an extensive Iron Age hillfort and
associated earthworks, plus other structures, enclosures and related burials
of the late Iron Age.
There is also a section of Roman aqueduct incorporated in the western and
northern parts of the monument. On the eastern half of the bluff is situated
an earlier Romano-British farmstead; and an extensive later cemetery,
possibly Christian, belonging to the Roman town Durnovaria and consisting of
some c1450 burials. Further buildings and enclosures of the 5th-8th
centuries overlie the Roman cemetery and indicate the continuity of settlement
in the area.
The following are all excluded from the scheduling;
1. all the above ground buildings/structures (though the ground
beneath these is scheduled);
2. the areas of the 1964-80 and 1986 excavations;
3. maintained and metalled roads within the Trading Estate.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Poundbury consists of a major settlement complex which spans four millennia
from at least the late Neolithic period onwards. Its central focus is an Iron
Age hillfort with multiple defences which together with Maiden Castle, Hod
Hill and others formed an important network of hillforts within the
Durotrigian tribal area. Its significance is indicated by the fact that the
Romans founded the civitas capital of Durnovaria alongside the hillfort soon
after the invasion. The cemetery associated with the town is one of the
largest Late Roman examples so far identified and archaeologically excavated
in Britain if not Europe, and its Christian connections give it exceptional
added value.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, , Dorset II: South East, (1970)
Davies, S M, Grieve, D, 'Proc Dorset NH and Arch Soc' in The Poundbury Pipeline: Archaeological Observations and Excavation, , Vol. 108, (1986)
Davies, S M, Harding, P, Soames, R, 'Proc Dorset NH and Arch Soc' in Recent excavations at the Grove Trading Estate, Dorchester 1987, (1987)
Davies, S M, Harding, P, Soames, R, 'Proc Dorset NH and Arch Soc' in Recent excavations at the Grove Trading Estate, Dorchester 1987, (1987), 81-88
Green, C J S, 'Dorset NH & Archaeo Soc Monograph S 7' in Excavations at Poundbury, (1987)
Green, C J S, 'Dorset NH & Archaeo Soc Monograph S 7' in Excavations at Poundbury, (1987), 130-33
Richardson, K M, 'Antiquaries Journal' in Excavations at Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset, 1939, , Vol. 20, (1940), 429-48

Source: Historic England