Medieval ditches on land at Westbarrow Hall Farm (EHER 17442)

A fieldwalking survey in 1996 recovered 10 sherds of medieval pottery. Subsequent trial trenching in 1997 recorded medieval ditches in the north-east of the site.

1996. Fieldwalking survey. A fieldwalking survey in advance of brickearth extraction produced prehistoric, Romano- British, Medieval, Post- Medieval and Modern finds. <1> 1997. Trial trenching. Medieval material was only recovered from the north site, specifically Trenches 4, 5, 9, 10, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 28 and 31. The main evidence of medieval activity was a number of large ditches with evidence of running water in the base of several of them. These were located in the north-east of the site, comprising ditches [143], [145], [147], [359] in Trench 17, [428] in Trench 24, [527] in Trench 25 and [1190] in Trench 31 and ditch [654] in Trench 32. They were probably associated with the area of medieval occupation to the north-east of the site (EHER 13416), which was first recorded as Partricheswyk in 1273 AD. Predominantly 13th to 14th century pottery was recovered from the primary fills of several of these ditches, which suggests that they were open and in use at the time that the record was made. Residual prehistoric, Roman and Saxon pottery was also recovered from some of the ditch fills, see EHER 17440 and EHER 17441. They may have been boundary ditches delineating the area of the occupation site, or field systems associated with it. <2> <3>