Medieval to post medieval agricultural activity and multiperiod finds on land south of Frinton Road, Thorpe-le-Soken (EHER 80458)

Forty-three features were uncovered during the course of this evaluation: twenty pits, thirteen ditches, four post-holes, five pits or natural features and one natural feature.

Evaluation, 2022 Forty-three features were uncovered during the course of this evaluation: twenty pits, thirteen ditches, four post-holes, five pits or natural features and one natural feature. Within the western half of the site, these remains were clustered towards the north-east while, in its eastern half, they were concentrated towards the east. The earliest evidence of activity at the site came in the form of a single sherd of Late Iron Age pottery which was recovered from a medieval, post-medieval or modern ditch in trench 26. Several sherds of Roman pottery and a heavily-burnt fragment of Roman brick or tile were also residually present in a number of features of medieval, post-medieval or modern date. Further finds of medieval date were recovered, and again this material was apparently residual. Three sherds of pottery which were likely 11th-12th century in date were retrieved from a ditch, two sherds of pottery dating from the 13th to the mid 16th century came from post medieval or modern pit F21, while a late 17th- to 18th- or early 19th-century ditch produced a medieval floor tile with traces of glaze. It is possible that this floor tile came form the nearby Thorpe Hall. The main period of activity here, however, occurred during the post-medieval and modern periods, during which time the site formed part of a field adjoining Thorpe Hall. It is likely, therefore, that the features dating to this period were the product of agricultural activity. Several features produced fragments of peg-tile and brick, including some pieces of unfrogged brick possibly dating from the late 17th to the 18th or early 19th centuries. These likely also derived from Thorpe Hall, its associated outbuildings or other nearby structures. Trenches T30, T31, T32 and T35 were positioned to target cropmarks which pass through the site, but only one corresponding feature, post-medieval or modern ditch F35 in trench T31, was found. It is possible that the other cropmarks denoted the presence of land disturbances which did not reach the natural geology. <1>