11th-12th century farmstead and 11th-12th century timber building at Jacks, Warish Hall Farm, Smith’s Green, Takeley (EHER 81104)

Trial trenching revealed the remains of a medieval ditch system, dating to the 11th to 12th centuries AD. The remains are probably associated with a small farmstead, comprising a series of agricultural enclosures. Evidence for domestic occupation was recorded in the southern corner of the site, where a series of closely spaced small ditches may be beam slots for a plank-built building. Further evidence for medieval domestic occupation within the site derives from the relatively sizeable assemblage of 11th to 12th century pottery recovered from most of the features investigated by the evaluation, along with a fragment of Mayen lava quern, a medieval padlock, iron nails and fragments of bone from a range of domestic animals. A subsequent excavation identified that the building may have been occupied by a blacksmith or a farrier.

April 2024. Trial trenching. Trial trenching revealed the remains of a ditch system dating from the 11th to 12th centuries AD, largely concentrated in the southern half of the site. The remains are probably associated with a small farmstead, comprising a series of agricultural enclosures, such as paddocks and in-fields, with evidence for domestic occupation revealed in Trench 9, where a series of closely spaced small ditches may be beam slots for a plank-built building. Further evidence for early medieval domestic occupation within the site derives from the relatively sizeable assemblage of Late Saxon pottery recovered from most of the features investigated by the evaluation, along with a fragment of Mayen lava quern, a medieval padlock, iron nails and fragments of bone from a range of domestic animals. Much of the pottery was abraded and the average sherd size was small, suggesting that originally this pottery may have been disposed of in nearby middens or elsewhere, later to become scattered and incorporated into the fills of ditches and pits, possibly when the site was cleared when the farmstead was abandoned. <1> July-August 2024. Archaeological excavation. The excavation further investigated the 11th-12th century agricultural remains recorded in the evaluation. The building would have been located within a plot on the north side of Jack's Lane, the road that leads to the moated site at Jack’s Green, immediately east of the site. The remains, which extended across Areas 1 and 2, consisted of a plot boundary ditch, a rectangular timber-built building with associated pits and ditches, and a ditch system forming two rectilinear enclosures. A series of parallel cultivation channels may also date to this period, although an earlier, Late Iron Age to Roman date for these cannot be discounted. The building may have been a house, or a workshop to the rear of a house that fronted on to Jack’s Lane, immediately south of the site. The building was on a north-south axis, either plank-built or constructed on timber sill beams set within the ditches. It measured approximately 13.5m long by 8.0m wide; the building may have extended further to the south, and possibly the north, but the foundation ditches appear to have been truncated by ploughing so the plan of the building is incomplete. Several large pits near the building were found to contain domestic rubbish, one pit in particular containing relatively large amounts of charred cereal grains. The overall picture based on the archaeological evidence appears to tentatively suggest that horses were kept at the site and that the dwelling and associated features may have been associated with the activities of a blacksmith or farrier. Settlement on the site ended abruptly sometime during the 12th century, as there were no pottery or artefacts of later date in the excavated features. <2>