Waddon Hill Roman Fort sits just outside Broadwindsor, above Stoke Abbott. Its role in the Roman invasion of West Dorset will be explored in an exhibition at Beaminster Museum in 2025. The fort was established in about 50 BCE five years after the initial invasion, and abandoned at about the time of the Boudiccan revolt of 60-61 BCE.
The Roman arrival in West Dorset came through Christchurch and Poole harbours, with a major fort at Lake Farm near Wimborne, a small fort within the boundary of Hod Hill, and a very recently recognised large fort at Bradford Abbas. Waddon Hill though was not established until about 50 BCE, by which time the camps at Hod Hill and Bradford Abbas had been abandoned.
Modern dating techniques and more recent excavation have challenged the story of Mortimer Wheeler and Bill Putnam on the Roman impact in West Dorset. The current view is the hill forts were largely abandoned by this time, and Wheeler’s “War cemetery” at Maiden Castle is an Iron Age community cemetery spanning a long history, and his destruction layer simply overspill form a long history of iron working at the site. Ian Richmond’s ballista attack on the chieftan’s hut at Hod Hill is likely the site of a target for training soldiers in the use of the ballista, long after the nearby iron age roundhouse had vanished.
Waddon Hill Fort sits on a small hill of limestone below Lewesdon hill, next to an ancient trackway in use for millenia, that runs in the valley just to the north. A few hundred meters further west, just below Lewesdon hill, parts of the track show signs of improvement in the roman period. The fort construction team left behind tent pegs from tents housing the construction crew, who built a timber fort on the site. There was a bath house in the field to the north, with what was one of the earliest mosaics in Britain, and probably a parade ground on the spur to the east. After only about five years, the fort was abandoned, either due to a need for the troops in the east from the threat of the Boudiccan revolt, and / or as the main route to Exeter and the west moved closer to the coast.
Modern discovery
The wealthy Cox family of Beaminster Manor house owned the land in the 19th century, and the Inferior Oolite limestone was quarried for the growth of Broadwindsor and Stoke Abbott, and a lime kiln produced the needed lime mortar from the waste stone. Roman items were found by the quarrymen, including a brooch and coin that passed to Mary Cox at Beaminster Manor. The Bridport Ironmonger, James Ralls, and a Mr. Pownesland, undertook excavations on the site in 1878 to 1882. James Ralls finds were used as security against a loan from the Colfox family, but he died before repaying the loan and the Colfox’s passed the finds to Bridport Museum at its founding in the 1930’s. Pownesland’s finds were auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1948, and bought by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Mary Cox’s material passed to Poole Museum on her death in 1911. The Tolley family aquired the land from the Cox’s, and farmed it until 2018, and a small collection of material passed to Bridport Museum at that time. Mrs Grace Tolley passed a rare coin at their request, to the British Museum for their collection. Material from Chart Knowle is on display in Stoke Abbott parish hall. In the 1960’s Graham Webster from the University of Birmingham spent a few years comprehensively excavating the fort site. Beaminster museum hold some of the Webster objects on loan from DMAG and a brooch fragment donated in 2015 by a metal detectorist in a nearby field. In 2023 the University of Bournemouth conducted new geophysics over the broader site including the fields to the north that have never been looked at archaeologically.
Mythmakers of Maiden Castle – Miles Russell
In the footsteps of Vespasion: Russell, Cheetham, Stewart and John
Beaminster Museum Project
Beaminster museum plan an exhibition on the context of Waddon Hill Fort in 2025, and plan to bring together a selection of objects showing the challenges of fragmentation of items over time from the site, and the potential use of 3D scans to reunite material in one place to better tell the story of a site. Beaminster museum also have a monograph of all the published material on the site, but for copyright reasons this is only available for study at the museum.
We are grateful to the Royal Society for funding our infrared scanner for the project.
3D scanned material from Waddon Hill
Dorchester Museum and Art Gallery material on loan.
Two handled Flask fragment, romano-british black burnished ware.
Two handled Flask fragment – from Webster 1962, course pottery, item 4. Approx. 200 mm tall. Item 4, DMAG number 1962.46, ref 1.
Compare the published illustration on the left, with the 3D model below.
Which helps you better understand the object ?
| A double handled flagon with the handles showing a peak and the rim with an internal lid seating, in Black Burnished ware with brown oxidised patches. This is a fully romanised form but made in the local native technique including the vertical burnishing on the neck, a feature of later flagons made in the South West. Kindly on loan from Dorset Museum and Art Gallery. |
Samian Ware
This fragment of high status pottery made in Gaul is part of a type 29 bowl, found in Websters Trench 2 in 1961.The first image is of a similar patterned complete type 29 bowl, from La Graufesenque kilns in Gaul, in the British Museum. ( 1915,1208.54 )
Beaminster Museum material – Broadwindsor Brooch
This fragment of a 1st century brooch is almost certainly a stray from Waddon Hill, and was found by a metal detectorist in 2015 to the north of Waddon Hill fort. It was kindly donated to Beaminster Museum.
An incomplete copper alloy Aesica bow brooch.There are old breaks in several places. The open wings are incomplete. At the head is a remnant of a rearward hook. The pin is missing. The lozenge-shaped head arches steeply forming a loop with the flat bow behind it. The head is decorated with a central longitudinal rib with and eye-like moulding either side (a curving ridge around a pellet). There is a slight projection on each side apex. Where the head joins the bow there is a raised circular ridge. Below this extends the stub of the leg decorated with a crescent at the top a pellet below and side ridges. At the back is a remnant of the catchplate.
Date: Late Iron Age to Early Roman – c. AD 43 – 100
Dimensions: 37.58 mm x 23.03 mm x 18.50 mm
Weight: 20.80 g Spatial coordinates : 4 Figure: ST4400 Entry In PAS DataBase at the British Museum
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