NHER 66632 (Monument record) - Late Saxon to post-medieval remains

September 2021. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
The three trenches excavated revealed a number of features of probable Late Saxon to medieval date, including a cluster of pits in the north-west part of the site and a several east-north-east to west-south-west aligned ditches to the south (all likely to relate to a single plot or field boundary). The pottery assemblage recovered includes a notable number of Late Saxon and early medieval sherds, demonstrating that sustained activity had commenced by at least the 11th century. However, there are few features that can be confidently associated with this early phase of activity, with features in both of the main groups also producing later material and even the largest assemblages of Saxo-Norman to early medieval pottery coming from contexts that also produced high medieval pottery.
The group of potentially medieval pits comprised four features, one of what was considerably larger and interpreted as a probable extraction pit. This larger pit truncated one of the smaller examples and produced the largest assemblage of high medieval pottery, along with a single sherd of post-medieval pottery. Other finds from these features included a lava quern stone that had possibly been reshaped and used as a weight.
Samples taken from two of the medieval pits and one of the potentially medieval ditches all produced a range of material likely to represent domestic refuse, including charcoal, charred cereal grains and pulses, possible charred peat, fish and mammal bones (including those from house mice) and marines shells. Hammerscale was also present in all samples, indicating that iron smithing has been taking place somewhere in the vicinity.
As noted above a series of east-north-east to west-south-west aligned ditches were also of probable medieval date. Potentially later linear features included two adjacent north-west to south-east aligned to the south that produced single fragments of post-medieval pottery and clay tobacco pipe. The one ditch that can be confidently assigned a post-medieval date was a east-to-west aligned feature that truncated the medieval pit group and contained post-medieval pottery and glass. This feature also coincides with a former field boundary depicted at this location on the Ordnance Survey First Edition Six-inch map (S1). Other features of relatively recent date included two small pits containing fragments of post-medieval pottery and glass. Linear features exposed at the southern edge of the site relate to a building that can be seen on 19th-century maps of the site.
There was some limited artefactual evidence for activity on the site prior to the Late Saxon period, although these finds were all either unstratified or residual within later contexts. These objects include a possible Mesolithic flint microlith and a small assemblage of prehistoric flint micro debitage (all recovered from samples), several Roman pottery sherds and a single handmade sherd of Early to Middle Saxon date.
Information from draft report. Final version awaited.
P. Watkins (HES), 21 December 2022.