Undated features and possible Roman settlement at Martell's Quarry, Ardleigh (EHER 80552)

The earliest securely identifiable activity on the site was of Roman date and consisted of a number of pits and ditches located to the NW of the site and an extensive artefact assemblage which was interpreted as indicative of domestic habitation.

August 2007. Trial trenching. The earliest securely identifiable activity on the site was of Roman date. It consisted of a number of pits and ditches located to the NW of the site (Trenches 1, 2, 4, 10 and 16), two isolated finds, one a single sherd of pottery (Trench 48) to the SW, the other a single fragment of brick (Trench 33) in the centre of the site and a cremation (Trench 25) to the East. The artefact assemblage from the Roman period comprised a wide range of materials including slag, roof tile, human bone, animal bone, imported and locally produced pottery, including two semi-complete vessels, and iron nails. This is interpreted as an assemblage indicative of domestic habitation. A number of the ditches were found in Trenches 1, 2 and 4, which had a broad correlation to cropmarks plotted from an aerial photograph, and indicate the presence of rectilinear enclosures in the NW corner of the site. A possible hypothesis can be generated from the artefact assemblage and the excavated contexts: that there was an enclosed structure undertaking an industrial process in the NW corner of the site and that the inhabitants of this building were burying their dead two hundred metres to the East. Further fieldwork would be required to ascertain the accuracy of any such premise. The majority of the features encountered during the fieldwork were undatable and were comprised of boundary ditches within an agricultural landscape. However, in Trench 48 to the SW of the site there was further evidence for the presence of early domestic structures at the site, comprising postholes, pits and possibly an enclosure. <1>