Lodge Farm, Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset

AbstractLodge Farm is a stone first-floor hall house of the early fifteenth century built for Henry V or VI. Documentary sources suggest that it was the residence of the head park keeper, warrener and forester of Kingston Lacy manor.Refurbishment of the building in 1986–9 was accompanied by a full archaeological and photographic survey. Archaeological excavation, in advance of underpinning, revealed archaeological features below the foundations. Ditches and post-holes contained pottery dating to the Early Iron Age. Two lengths of ditch, separated by a causeway, are interpreted as part of a deer park boundary. The fillings of the deer-park ditches contained building debris of thirteenth- to fifteenth-century-date, probably from an earlier lodge. A dump of fallow deer antlers within the north ditch filling was dated by radiocarbon analysis to A.D. 1325–1415 A.D. at I sigma.A study of documentary sources shows Lodge Farm to be an important building within the hunting land of the medieval manor of Kingston La...