Proc Dorset Natur Hist Archaeol Soc 127

opening paragraphs of a tribute to Mansel-Pleydell published in the Dorset County Chronicle on 2 April 1903, entitled `The Milborne Boys Home its inception and work'

notes on the Mansel-Pleydell prize, and on some of the essays submitted for it between 1906 and 2005

The article brings together three written sources -- one eighth-century charter and two counted as items of seventh-century literature -- with a view to throwing light on the making of early medieval Lyme, and setting it within a wider world of late antique salt working and exploitation.

Archaeological observations to the rear of 41 and 43 East Street, Bridport, revealed traces of a large ditch running east--west, along the southern side of Rax Lane. This ditch has been identified as the `Wide Ditch', the thirteenth-century town ditch that defended the northern side of Bridport. The ditch remained a boundary feature until the late-eighteenth century. Following the digging of this ditch, there is no evidence for activity on the site until the seventeenth to early-eighteenth century, when a boundary wall was built on the southern lip of the Town Ditch and a number of pits were dug to the south. These pits are probably associated with the existing house on the East Street frontage, built in the seventeenth century. Several late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pits were dug through the fills of the Town Ditch. Two pottery vessels from pits dated c.1800 are almost certainly products of the Beaminster potteries and are the first to be identified archaeologically. Includes

Report on a survey carried out in 2005 of hedge boundaries on the estate, with the aim of identifying ancient (pre-Enclosure) and/or species-rich hedges.

Notes on seven stone artefacts collected from around Knitson Farm, including fragments of three rotary hand querns, two stone mortars, a cross finial or coping stone and a fragment of a loom weight. Two of the quern fragments are believed to be Iron Age or Roman in date; the remaining artefacts, where datable, are believed to be medieval.

Brief note on an unusual post-medieval pottery handle found just north-west of Lyme Regis.