Post-medieval deposits at Church of England Primary School, School Street, Great Chesterford (EHER 83474)

Archaeological monitoring in the grounds of the school found only post medieval deposits relating to the school.

May 2012. Archaeological excavatiob. Archaeological monitoring in the grounds of the school found only post medieval deposits relating to the school. In the southeast corner, alongside the library building, an area of clean re-deposited chalk was found directly under a 0.4m thickness of modern rubble bedding for the path. Exposed in southwestern and western parts of the foundation trenching was a 0.4m-thick layer of mid brown clayey silt over a 0.35-0.45m deposit of dark brown clayey silt that contained tile fragments, charcoal flecks and grey ?ashey lenses. These were evidently of post-medieval date but likely predated the original school construction. They were cut by a roughly constructed modern soakaway pit, filled with brick rubble, into which a number of rainwater drains from the surrounding buildings fed. While the full depth of the dark brown silt was not established along the southern side, to the west it bottomed onto a lighter greyish brown clay/silt at a depth of 1.0m below ground surface. This also contained small tile fragments and occasional charcoal flecks. Being a firmer deposit, it is possible that this was a decent in situ deposit, though probably still of post-medieval date. Its nature and depth was not further explored. The deposit sequence exposed within the northern part of the trenching was distinctly different. The dark silt deposits observed to the south became increasingly less substantial, overlying an earlier deposit that became increasingly lighter in colour and texture. At the northern extreme, this was an orangey brown sandy silt 0.4m thick, more-or-less directly under the topsoil and overlying light brown-yellow natural clay (over chalk?) encountered at a depth of 0.8m below ground surface. The orangey brown silt contained occasional fragments of peg tile, charcoal flecks and rare whole cow leg bones and oyster shells. A further foundation pit was cut in the approximate middle of the site to a depth of 0.7m, but only revealed the presence of the upper mid brown silt evident to the south. It is tempting to speculate that this is all part of the fill sequence of a pond or quarry pit. A pond was reportedly filled prior to the construction of the school in 1844-1849. No evidence of Roman pits, similar to those found 25m to the east in 2003 (see EHER 46542), was encountered. <1>