Post-medieval pottery, Butler Cottage, 17 North End (EHER 49420)

2016 Test Pit 5. One of ten test pits excavated in Southminster as part of the Access Cambridge Archaeology Project. Most of the pottery from this test-pit is Victorian, indicating that the site was not used before that time, other than perhaps as fields in the early medieval period and the 16th – 18th centuries. Other finds were also recovered but remain undated.

April 2016. Access Cambridge Archaeology test pitting. One of ten test pits excavated in Southminster as part of the Access Cambridge Archaeology Project. Most of the pottery from this test pit is Victorian, indicating that the site was not used before that time, other than perhaps as fields in the early medieval period and the 16th – 18th centuries. <1> <2> The vast majority of the pottery excavated from Test Pit 5 dates as 19th century ‘Victorian’ wares. Single sherds of Essex Grey Ware, Glazed Red Earthenware and English Stoneware were also recorded through the test pit. The other finds consist of tile, ceramic building material (CBM), fragments of brick, sewer drain, clay pipe, glass including a bottle from Burnham-on-Crouch that likely dates from the very early 20th century and may have held mineral water. Also found were coal, slate, iron nails and bolts, slag, strips of metal, a washer, hair clip, horseshoe fragment, part of a spoon, metal wire, a door hook, concrete, tarmac, mortar, animal bone, cockle and oyster shell and a central battery core. Beside the modern material, no date is given for this assemblage. <3>