NHER 68190 (Monument record) - ?Iron Age, medieval and post-medieval remains

October-November 2022. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of northern part of large proposed development area (Trenches 1-88).
The 88 trenches excavated at this location revealed evidence for medieval activity at the northern edge of the site, close to Green Lane. The majority of the scattered ditches and possible pits recorded elsewhere were though mostly either late post-medieval or undated.
The one potentially earlier feature was a north-to-south aligned ditch in the southern half of the site that contained a small assemblage of Iron Age pottery. A sample taken from the fill of this feature was found to contain charcoal but little else in the way of plant macrofossils or other remains. A single sherd of Iron Age pottery found residual in a later ditch and two fragments of potentially Roman ceramic building material were the only other early finds recovered.
Although more than 200 medieval pottery sherds were recovered the bulk of this assemblage came from one group of intercutting pits. The presence of a significant quantity of early medieval pottery suggests that activity at this location had potentially begun as early as the 11th century. Several ditches and a small pit that produced only small amounts of early medieval pottery were potentially associated with this initial phase of activity. The bulk of this material was though recovered from the main group of pits and a number of overlying deposits – the majority of which also contained later, high medieval pottery that suggests a 13th-century date for these remains. It is thought that these features were probably extractive pits that had subsequently been used to dispose of domestic refuse. This is supported by samples taken from their fills, which contained charcoal and small amounts of charred wheat and barley grain. There was little evidence for significant later activity at this location, with finds of late medieval or early medieval date limited to a single pottery sherd and a number of bricks of possible 15th or 16th date.
The various ditches uncovered across the remainder of the site were mostly aligned either north-north-west to south-south-east or east-north-east to west-south-west, with the majority corresponding with former field boundaries depicted on either the Redenhall tithe map (S1) or the Ordnance Survey First Edition Six-inch map (S2). These features contained a range of late post-medieval to modern finds, including pottery, window and bottle glass, ceramic building material and clay tobacco pipe. Post-medieval finds were also recovered from a number of the other, similarly-aligned ditches - which presumably represented elements of this field system that had been lost prior to the mid 19th century.
The small number of scattered possible pits recorded were mostly undated and fairly unremarkable features.
Unstratified finds from this field included several medieval and post-medieval pottery sherds, a medieval coin and a small assemblage of other, post-medieval to modern and undated metal objects.
See report (S3) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 2 April 2024.