An archaeological dig near Corfe Castle in Dorset has started to uncover secrets of the medieval village of Afflington, which disappeared centuries ago, and the finds are to go on display in nearby Langton Matravers Museum.
Digging restarted in April 2026 for a third season on the site which was once a bustling centre of the stone trade in Purbeck, important enough to be granted a fair and market by King Henry III in 1269.
The site where Afflington village was once located, with the archaeological dig, pictured above the pond
Disappeared completely
But the village, recorded in the Domesday Book as Alvronetone and later known as Alfrington, Addlington and Afflington, has since disappeared completely.
In May 2000, Historic England listed four hectares of land between Woodyhyde Farm and Afflington Manor as a scheduled monument, land which covers much of the remains of the deserted medieval village of Afflington.
Community archaeology group Dorset Diggers has since been granted permission to dig on the land adjoining the scheduled monument.
Excavations began in October 2024 and the group has already recorded a number of exciting finds.
Finds from the dig include a ‘posh’ candle holder (top right), some buckles, and a saddle strap which could predate the Norman Conquest
Medieval and Roman pottery found
Trenches opened up on the site have revealed Roman pottery, as well as plenty from the medieval period, proving that Afflington has far more ancient roots than previously thought.
Although the team still doesn’t know why and when the thriving village mysteriously disappeared, they feel able to rule out the possibility that residents were wiped out by the Black Death.
That’s because much of the pottery discovered postdates 1350, when plague wiped out up to 60 percent of England’s population.
A talk to the Langton Matravers local history society attracted more than 50 interested villagers
Chris Tripp (left) was the lead archaeologist on the dig at Afflington
“Everyone was working to survive”
Chris Tripp, leader of the Dorset Diggers, gave an update on the archaeological dig at Langton Matravers village hall on Thursday 17th April 2026, when it was revealed that finds from the dig will be put on display at Langton Matravers Museum, possibly later in 2026.
Chris Tripp said:
“It was all very exciting for us to be given the chance to dig on a deserted medieval village because they are protected so heavily.
“What would a typical medieval village look like? It was a tightly knit eco system of people, land and customs, where houses were small – often just one room – lived in by multi generational families and their animals.
“But it is not as simple as tiny wooden houses and muddy tracks where everyone was dirty and had black teeth. I have dug up quite a few medieval bodies during my career and they all had very good teeth, if worn down a bit.
“Everyone was working to survive, if the fields needed to be harvested before the season ended, women and children would work alongside the men as well as tending the home – this was the backbone of the medieval era.
“We always read about the great lords and knights, but these small communities were where everyday life occurred. The fields had to be ploughed, the bread baked and the ale brewed and that’s what I’m interested in, everyday lives and the stuff they left behind.”
Trenches were first dug at the site of the deserted medieval village in autumn 2024
Metal detecting on site
Chris added:
“When we opened up trenches on the site at Afflington we found pottery and when we sent it off to the experts we discovered that one of the ditches was actually Roman, which was a bit of a surprise, though the finds weren’t very exciting in themselves.
“Most of the pottery we found was Wessex coarseware, which is 11th and 12th century, followed by Poole Harbour whiteware from the 13th and 14th century, West Dorset sandyware, from the 13th to the 15th century, and Cologne French ware, dated 1520 to 1630 – it just shows how busy this site was from the Roman period onwards.
“We did some metal detecting on site and found decoration off a three legged pot, a nice set of buckles, ranging from 1300s all the way to the 1800s, and a very well made candle holder, which was very unusual and very posh, not what you would expect in a small hamlet.
“We also found a late Anglo Saxon saddle mount strap which possibly predates the Norman Conquest, a piece of metal that would connect a stirrup with the strap which leads to the saddle.
“It could be our first evidence that the settlement was there before the Normans came and ruined our country.”
However, a wet autumn and clay soil mean they were quickly left with a swimming pool
“It is very exciting”
Mary Sparks, curator for the Langton Matravers local history and preservation society, said:
“The sites of deserted medieval villages have been found throughout the UK and are listed and protected by Historic England, so no one is allowed to dig on the actual site.
“But excavations literally across the road from the site at Afflington have been possible and these can deepen our understanding of the village.
“The dig forms part of a larger project to tell the story of Afflington Manor, its people and farming practices, and it is very exciting to be able to include the dig discoveries in that wider story.
“The whole area was well settled before Domesday, in 1086, when the manor was listed as belonging to Roger de Beaumont, a Norman knight who had provided ships for the conquest and was rewarded with extensive lands in Dorset.”
The extent of the land which Historic England has protected as a scheduled monument is shown in red
Why was a busy village deserted?
Mary added:
“We’ve established that there was a settlement there in the Roman period of some sort and we know that at Domesday there were people living there, that’s our first formal written record.
“We are trying to find out why such a busy village was suddenly deserted, sometimes it’s the great plague, sometimes there are other reasons, but from the volume of pottery that has been found so far from the 1200s to the 1500s, it may well be an indication of when it was most occupied.
“We know that a chantry chapel there was dissolved in the reign of Edward VI (1547 to 1553), but I have found a record to say that the priest there hadn’t actually done any services for some time, so I suspect the chapel had gone out of use before that.
“I would say in this case that it wasn’t the Black Death which caused the village to be deserted because that was 1348 and for the next 20 years, but the evidence we are getting suggests that it was deserted later than that.”
Members of a geophysics team returned to the Afflington site in April 2026 to continue their work
A welcome break after a hard day’s dig – new volunteers are always welcome to join the team!
Langton Matravers Museum, where finds from the dig will go on display
Further information
- More about the dig on the Dorset Diggers blog site
- More about Langton Matravers Museum is on the Langtonia website
