One of our long-standing members has kindly given me his collection of newspaper cuttings relating to the history and archaeology of Christchurch. I particularly noticed that it was just 50 years ago, in 1973, that the first evidence of the western defences of the burh of Christchurch-Twynham was discovered in the excavation at the south end of Druitt Gardens. Arising from this discovery and related excavations came the listing of a portion of the Gardens as a Scheduled Ancient Monument and provided the inspiration for the later geophysical investigations of the Gardens carried out by TCA and others.
The newspaper article is noted as dating from January 1973 and probably comes from the Bournemouth Evening Echo. The accompanying photograph shows a rather precarious trench with evidence of several collapses of the face of the trench, The trench actually extended some 60 metres from the back of the Regent Centre across what is now the northern end of Wick Lane Car Park, but formerly within the boundary of Druitt Gardens. Cllr Michael Hodges, at that time a member of the former Christchurch Brough Council, is shown posing, in the rain, on the tumble of ironstone boulders discovered in the trench and now assumed to have been the remains of the revetment of the earthen bank of the defences of the burh of Anglo-Saxon burh of Twynham. (In recent years, Michael, now sadly deceased, was a member and supporter of TCA).
A further newspaper cutting, dated to April 1971 described the discovery of the remains of substantial northern defences to the burh. However, prior to the discoveries in Druitt Gardens, the assumption had been that the eastern and western defences relied on the rivers and marshland which bordered the town. Clearly the 1973 excavation was beset by wet weather and constrained by time pressures – the article notes that the excavation has to be completed by February 1973. A detailed description of the trench can of course be found in the classic work of Christchurch archaeology, ‘Excavation in Christchurch 1969-1980’, by Keith Jarvis, DNH&AS Monograph 5.
The Christchurch Antiquarians 