Flagstones is a late Neolithic interrupted ditch enclosure (similar to a causewayed enclosure) on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset, England. It derives its name from having been discovered beneath the site of the demolished Flagstones House. Half of it was excavated in the 1980s when the Dorchester by-pass was built; the rest of it still exists under the grounds of Max Gate, Thomas Hardy's house.

The Druid Stone

In March 1891 workmen were digging under the lawn at Thomas Hardy's house at Max Gate when they discovered a large sarsen stone underground. It took seven men with levers to raise the stone which had been lying flat. he wrote about the stone in his poem "The Shadow on the Stone". It was only when the enclosure was discovered in the 1980s that it was realised that the sarsen stone came from a larger monument. ]]

Around half of the enclosure was excavated in 1987. The part of the enclosure in the grounds of Flagstones House was excavated by Wessex Archaeology, and then the grounds were totally removed to make a deep cutting for the Dorchester by-pass road.

References

Further reading

  • Roland J. C. Smith, 1997, Excavations along the Route of the Dorchester Bypass, Dorset Wessex Archaeology Report