Mount Pleasant, Dorset: Excavations 1970-1971. Incorporating an Account of Excavations Undertaken at Woodhenge in 1970

With major contributions by D. Britton, R. Burleigh, J. G. Evans, R. A. Harcourt and I. H. Longworth. The low hill called Mount Pleasant lies across a ridge on the eastern edge of Dorchester in West Stafford parish. Distinguished by a copse of trees crowning a barrow on the western bank of the enclosure which surrounds its summit, the original earthworks have for the most part been spread and flattened by centuries of ploughing. Sufficient of the bank remains, however, for the site to have been classified as a possible henge enclosure on the basis of a barely surviving segment of the earthwork, which indicated that the ditch was sited within the bank. Excavations between 1970 and 1971 within the earthwork surrounding the top of Mount Pleasant hill near Dorchester recorded the post-holes of a circular timber structure similar to those recorded at Durrington Walls, Woodhenge and the Sanctuary on Overton Hill. The earliest evidence for occupation on the site pre-dates the enclosure and has been assigned by radiocarbon determinations to the latter part of the third millennium be. The bank and internal ditch surrounding some 11 acres were constructed around 2000 be and were entered by four causeways as at Avebury. At the same time a large circular timber structure inside its own ditch was constructed within the enclosure. Grooved Ware sherds together with associated flint and bone artifacts and animal bones were recorded from the enclosure and the timber structure. Sometime before 1800 BC the enclosure ditch was enlarged at the west entrance and the enclosure bank was crowned by the Conquer Barrow in its west sector. Around 1700 BC the timber structure was replaced by a stone 'cove' with outlying monoliths at the same time as the hill-top was surrounded by a strong timber palisade. The latter enclosed some ten acres of the hill-top with two entrances in the north and west and may have stood at least 6.00 m. high above ground level. The structure and the stone cove were associated with numerous beaker sherds. Occupation on the hill-top down to 1000 be is attested by radiocarbon dates and stratified pottery from the enclosure ditch. Sporadic occupation occurred during the first millennium BC when the stone cove was destroyed and the hill given over to arable cultivation. Two pagan Saxon graves provide the final evidence for settlement.