Woodcutts Common is the site of a small Romano-British farmstead on Cranborne Chase, Dorset, occupied from the late Iron Age (c. 1st century BC) through to the late 4th century AD. It comprised a series of enclosures, pits, ditches and storage features typical of a chalk-downland agricultural settlement, with three broad occupation phases reflecting expansion and reorganisation over roughly four centuries.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site is one of the classic excavated rural settlements of Roman Britain, forming part of the dense pattern of native farmsteads on Cranborne Chase that supplied agricultural produce — primarily grain and livestock — to the wider regional economy, possibly within an imperial estate centred on the area.
Woodcutts was excavated by Lt-Gen. Augustus Pitt Rivers in 1884–85 and published in volume I of his *Excavations in Cranborne Chase* (1887), where his meticulous recording of finds, sections and plans set a new methodological standard for British archaeology. Recovered material included coinage spanning the 1st–4th centuries, pottery (Samian, New Forest and local wares), querns, iron tools, ovens, deep storage pits, a probable well, and human burials, indicating a continuously occupied but modest agrarian holding.
Woodcutts Common is the site of a small Romano-British farmstead on Cranborne Chase, Dorset, occupied from the late Iron Age (c. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Iron Age and Romano-British settlement remains on Woodcutts Common, 850m south east and 845m SSE of Arundell Cottages is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Iron Age and Romano-British settlement remains on Rotherley Down (2 km), A complex of Iron Age and Romano-British settlement on Berwick Down centred 700m south east of Ashcombe Farm (2.6 km), Linear boundary and section of Roman road, 550m south east of Ashmore Farm (4.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Iron Age and Romano-British settlement remains on Woodcutts Common, 850m south east and 845m SSE of Arundell Cottages