Roman metalworking site, Clacton Road (EHER 17707)

The laying out of new pipes from the centre of Elmstead Market to Flag Hill in St Osyth Park uncovered evidence of occupation and metalworking likely dating from the Roman period.

November 1991. Watching brief. The pipeline was visited in November 1991. From Elmstead Market to the junction at Station Road and Great Bentley Road, near Frating Cross, most of the pipe was already laid, and most of the subsoil had been obscured. Some of the stripped areas South of Frating Cross had been driven over, and much of the subsoil surface was obscured by a thin layer of silt after heavy rain. Topsoil stripping was still in progress at the pipelines southern end. Two sites were identified. One an occupation site of the medieval period and the other Roman in date with the Roman site centred on TM 1050 1966. <1> Information from NRHE Evidence of occupation and metalworking, much of the latter from the fill of a pit, was noted in a watching brief on construction of a water pipeline. The metalworking debris was chiefly thought to be hearth lining, but pieces of charcoal in a spongy matrix of heavily fired, largely vitrified clay, were interpreted as deriving from smithing and pieces of tap slag indicated smelting. Datable finds were limited, merely showing that the site was Roman or later.