Middle Iron Age roundhouse at Park Farm, Bulls Lodge Quarry (EHER 80635)

Trial trenching in 2020 recorded a probable Middle Iron Age ring gully in Trenches 38 and 39, though no internal features were found within the trenches. Two postholes to the immediate South, one of which contained a quantity of fired clay/daub, may corroborate this interpretation.

May 2018. Geophysical survey. An area of archaeological interest was identified at Park Farm, in fields F6a and the Eastern side of F7a, which contain two relatively well-defined circular anomalies (16m and 20m in diameter respectively). These are interpreted as ring ditches and may be the sub-surface remains of a ploughed-out round barrow. Around these two anomalies are numerous discontinuous low magnitude linear anomalies which are interpreted as likely ditch type features of possible archaeological origin. A second area of archaeological interest was identified in fields F1a, F1b and F1c but is much harder to characterise as the magnetic background is much more variable. The linear anomalies here describe two possible rectilinear enclosures, the more Northerly a negative anomaly defined on three sides. There are also numerous discrete anomalies which may be due to features such as pits, though due to the variable background may equally be interpreted as geological. <1> August 2020. Archaeological excavation. Iron Age material was generally sparse across the site, occurring as a small number of pottery sherds in features in four widely spread locations within the Phase 1 and Topsoil Storage areas. The ring-gully recorded in Trenches 38 and 39 produced pottery of probable Middle Iron Age date and is likely to constitute the remains of a roundhouse. No internal features were found within the trenches, though two postholes were located to the immediate South, one of which contained a quantity of fired clay/daub and may corroborate the identification of the ring-gully as a structural feature. Trenches 7 and 66 each contained a pit with very small quantities of Iron Age pottery and were tentatively dated to this period. <2>