Westside Close, Old Sarum, Salisbury - Post-excavation Assessment

Wessex Archaeology

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned to undertake an archaeological excavation off Westside Close, Old Sarum, Salisbury, SP4 6BX. The excavation area was centred on NGR 415205 133780.

This was focussed on a small pit that contained Beaker pottery, animal bone, worked flint, burnt flint, a ‘ball flint’, charred hazel nut shell fragments, cereal grains and charcoal.

The excavation revealed two pits of potentially contemporary date in close proximity to this feature, although they contained smaller quantities of finds. A tiny, residual sherd of Beaker pottery was also retrieved from one of two postholes during the evaluation. These features were resolved, during the excavation, to have formed part of a ring, approximately 4.5 m in diameter, of seven postholes. The post-ring was probably the remains of a small, late prehistoric (e.g., later Bronze Age/Early Iron Age) roundhouse. Small amounts of chronologically undiagnostic late prehistoric pottery, worked flint, animal bone, sparse and poorly preserved charred cereal grains, charcoal and hazel nut shell fragments also came from the postholes.

The results provide a relatively minor, yet valuable contribution to current understanding of Late
Neolithic/Early Bronze Age and later prehistoric occupation of the landscape north and east of Old Sarum – as revealed by other, more extensive investigations in the local area. There is little potential to gain further information through analysis of the stratigraphic records and finds.