Post-medieval to modern features at Land South of Halstead Road, Earls Colne (EHER 80073)

Post-medieval to modern ditches are interpreted as field boundaries, some supported by historical mapping. Other features at the site include a post-medieval pit, three post-medieval to modern post-holes and undated pit and gully.

July 2021. Trial trenching. A low density of archaeological remains was encountered across the site. Where possible, these have been dated on the basis of their diagnostic artefact content, otherwise they are treated as undated. A post-medieval pit in Trench 1 was dated using a single piece of ceramic building material and may relate to activity at dwellings alongside Halstead Road. A ditch in Trench 5 was orientated N-S, perpendicular to Halstead Road, and may represent a field boundary. It is not shown on 19th to 20th century OS mapping so appears to have fallen out of use. Three post-holes in Trench 7 yielded Late 18th to early 20th-century brick but do not align with a structure on historic mapping. An L-shaped brick filled feature exposed in Trench 5 may be a drainage cut filled with rubble or possibly the foundation for a lightweight structure. Similarly, mapping does not provide a structure this could be assigned to. A ditch in Trenches 6 and 10 coincides with a field boundary that formerly ran across the site on a north-west/south-east orientation and is shown on late 19th and 20th-century OS mapping. The undated ditches found in Trenches 17 and 18 align well with the cropmark suggestive of a rectangular enclosure. Unfortunately the two excavated segments failed to yield datable finds. An undated gully in Trench 1 is on a similar alignment to the field boundary to the west. The pit in Trench 11 also remains undated. <1> June 2022. Trial trenching and open area excavation. The site was revisited for further evaluation, whereby an area of 2,291sq m was targeted around Trenches 17 and 18 in order to further investigate the apparent cropmark enclosure. No evidence of the continuation of either ditch identified by the earlier evaluation was observed within the excavation area and it was agreed with the ECC Place Services archaeological advisor that the features recorded during the evaluation were most likely variation in the natural deposits, perhaps tree throws or animal burrowing, which intersected with modern land drains. It therefore appears that these features, and the cropmark are not representative of an enclosure but rather coincidentally formed by a combination of a hedge line, natural changes in geology and potentially bioturbation. The area did, however, contain the remains of a former hedge line that extended across its south on a NE-SW orientation. The hedge line was traced for a length of c.70m and very likely beyond to both the western and eastern site boundaries. Three sherds of pottery, nine pieces of brick and tile, two pieces of vessel glass, an iron nail and fragments of coal were recovered. All date to the later 19th- to 20th-centuries. The remaining trial trenches were devoid of archaeologically significant features. <2>