Context One Heritage & Archaeology

Context One Heritage & Archaeology Context One is a an archaeological contractor and heritage consultancy company based in North Dorset

Weymouth Dig 2026. The dig might be over but the work continues...The clink of trowels may have fallen silent but the wo...
02/07/2026

Weymouth Dig 2026. The dig might be over but the work continues...

The clink of trowels may have fallen silent but the work on what we all found is only just starting. Welcome to what we're now calling the Found Station!

Boxes are stacked and will soon be ready to leave our store, bound for specialists who will spend months assessing and analysing what eight weeks of digging turned up.

Several thousand sherds of pottery. A similar number of animal bone fragments. All manner of other finds. Hundreds of context records. Nearly 2,000 photographs. Every one of these represents a question that awaits an answer.

Several talks on the excavation are already pencilled in, with the first preliminary results to be shared in the autumn. Watch this space!

DIG the Street Dorset Council

Weymouth Dig 2026. What We Found When We Kept Digging.The volunteers left us a week ago. The Context One team stayed on ...
07/06/2026

Weymouth Dig 2026. What We Found When We Kept Digging.

The volunteers left us a week ago. The Context One team stayed on for some final recording but the archaeology had other ideas!

What we thought was natural sand beneath the medieval walls turned out to be a deliberate levelling layer, around 100mm thick, sitting on top of something older. Beneath it, a thin burnt surface. Patches of red and black. Fragments of cooking pot still embedded in the floor. A roughly circular ferrous stain that may mark the seat of a fire. This appears to be the floor of an earlier building, and it's the earliest trace of activity we've found on the site.

The sequence that followed is becoming clearer, though our interpretation of it is still evolving. The thick wall along the northern frontage appears to have been cut through the levelling layer after the earlier building went out of use. A side wall followed. Then an enormous cut for the well, which may have destabilised the corner of the main wall. Large stones were thrown into the backfill of the well to reinforce it. Possible buttresses were added against the northern wall. A further wall was built along the western side, possibly an outshot covering the well.

What we're now looking at may not be three separate properties along the frontage after all. It could instead be a single building running parallel with St Nicholas Street, possibly a merchant's house covering three plots. The pottery associated with all these elements still points to a 13th and 14th century date. A modest dwelling at first, perhaps, followed promptly by something considerably larger and better appointed as the town grew quickly.

DIG the Street Dorset Council

Weymouth Dig 2026. How deep is your well? Turns out that our medieval well hit stone at 2.70m and through nearly a metre...
01/06/2026

Weymouth Dig 2026. How deep is your well?

Turns out that our medieval well hit stone at 2.70m and through nearly a metre of sediments. A big thank you to Ben for establishing the final depth and taking samples as he went.

We’ll be fascinated to find out more about what they can tell us in due course.

DIG the Street Dorset Council

Weymouth Dig 2026. Thank You.Today belonged to the volunteers.From the finds team working diligently under Tara, to the ...
29/05/2026

Weymouth Dig 2026. Thank You.

Today belonged to the volunteers.

From the finds team working diligently under Tara, to the site team under Cheryl, Richard, and Rachel. Becky has been busy throughout, in the background and on site, and today that included organising a wonderful children's activity session that brought families down to St Nicholas Street one last time.

The Context One team returns next week for final recording and photography. But tonight we just want to say thank you.

Around 150 volunteers gave their time across eight weeks of excavation. Our open day brought 1,700 Weymouth locals to the site. The Finds Station welcomed more than 550 visitors. And through it all, the Dig The Street community were with us every step of the way.

This community made this dig. We could not have done it without you.
There is one last chance to see the site. Join us for The Final Curtain on Wednesday 3 June, 4.30pm to 6.30pm at St Nicholas Street. All welcome.

DIG the Street Dorset Council

28/05/2026

Weymouth Dig 2026. They Built on Empty Ground.

One of the big questions driving our work along the frontage was whether anyone was here before the town was founded in the late 13th century. Today we got as close to an answer as the archaeology will give us. It looks as though the first properties of Melcombe Regis were established on virgin sand. No earlier activity beneath them. The town began here, and this was its beginning.

Pottery from that founding period dominated the finds trays as the team scraped through the last of the soils in and around the buildings. At the rear of the site, Steve and Lucy drew their section through the full sequence above the early cottages, meeting house, and quay wall. Andy finished his last day topping and tailing the same sequence at the northern end.

Weymouth Museum and Tudor House Museum both visited today to see the site before it closes, and we can hardly believe tomorrow is our final volunteer day.

But we are ending on a high. We're sharing it with a Children's Archaeology Drop-in from 11am to 1pm at West Street. Fun activities for ages 4 to 12, no booking needed. Come and join us.

DIG the Street Dorset Council

Weymouth Dig 2026. Wine, Luxury, and 700 Years of History.This fragment of pottery travelled from the Saintonge region o...
27/05/2026

Weymouth Dig 2026. Wine, Luxury, and 700 Years of History.

This fragment of pottery travelled from the Saintonge region of south-west France to Melcombe Regis sometime around 1550 to 1650. Lucy found it down near the quay wall. It is polychrome, finely made, and almost certainly arrived here as cargo associated with the wine trade. A luxury item in its day.

Medieval pottery is now one of our most common finds across the frontage, but pieces like this one tell a different story. Imported wares from France and Italy are beginning to appear, and they speak to a town that was trading internationally from its earliest days.

With only two days of volunteer digging left, the team is pushing hard into the medieval soils along the frontage, looking for anything that might reveal how this part of Melcombe Regis first came to be.

In true archaeological fashion, the best discoveries will undoubtedly be made in the closing days!

DIG the Street Dorset Council

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