Anglo-Saxon sunken-featured building, Barling Hall Quarry, Barling Magna (EHER 9879)

Watching briefs and archaeological excavation in 1977 recorded a possibly 5th century sunken-featured building (Grubenhaus) with post-hole at its eastern end.

1977. Watching brief and archaeological excavation. A sunken-featured building (Grubenhaus) was recorded as a well-defined feature cut into loose sand and gravel, appearing as a roughly rectangular pit. Cut into the gravel at the eastern end was a pit which, though lacking a post pipe, was interpreted as a post-hole. Finds had a random distribution throughout the fill and had a wide date range from the first to the eighth century AD (see EHER 9878 for Roman material). Saxon pottery identified by Mrs MU Jones and included a thumb-pot; biconical pot with line- and-groove decoration. Mrs Jones reports that all the hand-made sherds can be matched in the early Saxon settlement at Mucking, date range late fourth to early eighth century AD. The use of intentional roughening of the outer surface by the application of a slip containing large sand particles - 'schlickung' - may indicate an early, perhaps fifth-century date. <1> Note: The feature may have appeared as a cropmark prior to excavation, see EHER 11343.