WORKMEN have uncovered a piece of Dorchester's history at the town's old brewery site.

Cobbles dating back to Georgian times have emerged after being covered for more than 50 years.

Now developer Andrew Wadsworth has promised to preserve the historic road surface by incorporating the cobbles into a new street at the prestigious town centre site.

He said: "This was a complete surprise - we didn't know they were there. I'm absolutely delighted to find them. They are in shades of grey and brown granite and worn to a smooth surface by years of use.

"There are enough of them to re-use in a new street surface here. It's a bit of old Dorchester come to light."

The cobbles were lying beneath part of Weymouth Avenue and will be incorporated into Eldridge Street.

Mr Wadsworth added: "We had already planned that the main streets on the site would be cobbled and, as it happens, the cobbles that have been ordered for that are late arriving. So this find is very timely.

"Weymouth Avenue is a very old route. These cobbles don't go back to Roman times but I'm pretty sure they are older than Victorian. People have probably travelled over them for a couple of hundred years."

He said a visitor to the development recalled the old cobbled road being covered in the 1950s.

He added: "It seems as though almost everyone forgot they were there. I'm glad they've been found again. It seems to me to be criminal that someone would cover a huge area of fantastic cobbles."

The former Eldridge Pope brewery site is undergoing transformation into a mixed use development of homes, shops, a hotel, cinema and more. Its Victorian buildings are being retained and converted.