Undated features, North of Marsh Road (EHER 81267)

Excavation in 2021 recorded a sparse scatter of undated pits across the entire site, a large quantity of poorly-dated postholes in Area 1 (some in aligned groups and others less clearly associated), a possible cooking/industrial feature in the NE corner of Area 1, and a poorly dated posthole alignment in Area 4.

October 2019. Trial trenching. Two distinct clusters of postholes and pits were identified in Trench 14 and across Trenches 20 and 30. These are interpreted as remains of Middle Iron Age domestic structures, potentially constituting a farmstead. However, only a small quantity of diagnostic pottery sherds, from four of the features, were recovered. An Iron Age ditch and another undated ditch to the South may define a contemporary settlement boundary or part of a wider field system. This Iron Age land use activity is likely to extend into the currently un-evaluated NE part of the site. <1> Note: these features were reconsidered and redated during excavation, see below. See also EHER 49643. November 2020. Trial trenching. A number of postholes in Trench 38 defined the Northern periphery of a larger cluster of postholes and pits identified during the first evaluation phase (in Trenches 20 and 30) and tentatively interpreted as the remains of Middle Iron Age settlement activity, potentially constituting a farmstead. A similar date is also suggested for a N-S orientated ditch in Trench 34. A small cluster of postholes in Trench 31 is tentatively dated to the Late Iron Age/Early Roman period. <2> Note: these features were reconsidered and redated during excavation, see below. See also EHER 49643. February-March 2021. Archaeological excavation. The excavation recorded a number of undated pits across Areas 1-5, a posthole alignment in Area 4, several posthole alignments in Area 1, a hearth/oven-like feature in the NE corner of Area 1, and a possible ditch in outlying Trench 25. The miscellaneous undated pits located across Areas 1-5 were all generally oval or irregular in shape and relatively shallow with single fills. There are a total of 22 pits in the group and all are unphased due to their lack of finds and a lack of association with other features. These pits likely belong to the other phases of activity at the site (primarily either prehistoric, see EHER 81264-81265 or early medieval, see EHER 49643), but none display compelling enough evidence to be confident of this. The undated posthole alignment in the South of Area 4 comprised 14 roughly circular postholes arranged in a loose E-W alignment. The features as a whole are undated due to the lack of corroborating finds evidence; a fired clay object recovered from one of the features, which may derive from a later Iron Age to early Roman portable kiln bar, might well be a residual find. The group’s similarity of character to the early medieval postholes and its parallel alignment to the Anglo-Saxon structure suggest it could be considered an early Anglo-Saxon feature. Its function is uncertain, although a fence line is a possible interpretation. Other groups of undated post holes were also recorded, and some were left unexcavated. A possible cooking/industrial hearth/oven-like feature in the NE corner of Area 1 was fully excavated, but no datable finds were present. After its initial fill, the shallow circular pit experienced some in situ burning and the deposition of a dark grey secondary fill, which left the pit partly open. Following this use, a second pit of slightly smaller diameter was cut at the Western edge of the first. It was filled with a very dark charcoal-rich deposit, but there were no signs of scorching so this material was deposited when cool or cold. A possible ditch was located in Trench 25, about 15m South of Area 1. It was very shallow and orientated NE-SW and ended in a rounded South-Western terminal. It could also be interpreted as an elongated pit and, given its shallow depth (only 0.06m), agricultural disturbance is also a possibility. <3>