Post-medieval and undated features at Park Farm, Bulls Lodge Quarry (EHER 80638)

Trial trenching in 2020 recorded post-medieval field ditches and probable ponds/quarry pits in Trenches 9, 22-24, 26, 37, 141-144, 153, 154 and 164. These relate to the later agricultural use of the landscape and some appear to have been infilled in the modern period. Several undated ditches, gullies, pits and postholes were recorded across the evaluated areas and lacked any diagnostic artefacts or obvious association with dated remains.

August 2020. Trial trenching. A small number of features recorded by the evaluation are likely to be post-medieval and comprise field ditches and large quarry- or pond-like pits that are typical of agricultural land use in this period. In the West of the site the two quarry pits, encountered in Trenches 153, 154 and Trench 164, are thought likely to be of post-medieval date. The features yielded post-medieval ceramic building material and a fragment of mid 19th-20th century glass. An E-W aligned ditch in Phase 3, recorded in Trench 141 and possibly in Trench 144, contained a mix of medieval to post-medieval finds throughout its fills. The ditch, however, corresponds with a field boundary depicted on historic mapping of the site, suggesting the earlier material is residual in nature. The boundary is not present on mapping post-1960. Post-medieval ditches elsewhere were often found to contain ceramic land drain, presumably to retain their drainage function after backfilling/removal of the boundary. Undated features towards the SE of the site, in the Topsoil Storage Area, are likely associated with the Roman ditches, with those near to the Iron Age ring-gully/roundhouse likely related to its occupation/use. Undated features in the rest of the site mostly comprise ditches that likely relate to multiple phases of use, as they are of differing alignment. <1>