Event/Activity EPM199 - Excavations at Southwick Hill Crossroads 1972, Portsdown, Portsmouth

In late September 1972 Portsmouth Museum Service carried out an archaeological excavation on Portsdown Hill ahead of the construction of a roundabout at the intersection of Southwick Hill Road and Portsdown Hill Road (Southwick Hill Crossroads). Previous road works at the site in 1948 and 1956 had revealed Bronze Age cremation burials and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery. Iron Age pottery had also been found in the area during the 1950s, and a bell barrow, no longer visible in 1972, had been recorded in the late 1930s. An area of approximately 1, 230 sq. m was stripped by mechanical digger and the chalk surface cleaned by hand. The top soil was found to have been previously disturbed, and shallow gulleys cut the site in an approximate east-west direction. The gulleys contained metalwork which suggested a 19th century date. It is likely that this disturbance relates to extensive work undertaken on Portsdown when the Palmerston forts were constructed in the 1860s. A number of Bronze and Iron Age features were revealed during the excavation. Accession No. 1972/541