Most people when they dig in their back garden don’t expect to find anything more unusual some worms, an old bottle and a rusty can. But Peter Laurie dug up an 11th century abbey! Six feet under the lawn at his home in Abbotsbury he’s found what Peter Woodward at Dorset County Museum believes to be a previously unknown outbuilding of the former Benedictine abbey.
Peter, who is 73 and leads the Bridport & District U3A landscape archaeology group, thought there was a remote chance that there could be a Roman road running through his garden. So to test his theory he started digging with his 16-year-old grandson, Oscar. They’ve discovered a substantial freestone wall about one metre thick and one metre high that once enclosed several levels of farm buildings, one dating back to Shakespearean times. He plans to resume digging in the next few months.
The abbey at Abbotsbury was founded in the 11th century and dissolved during the reign of Henry the Eighth. The buildings were then demolished so that the stone could be reused.
