Bronze Age pit at Stagg's Farm (EHER 1327)

Routine visit to borrow pit for Dunmow relief road revealed prehistoric and later features in brickearth (0.3-1m thick) and underlying sandy gravel.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import: Routine visit to borrow pit for Dunmow relief road revealed prehistoric and later features in brickearth (0.3-1m thick) and underlying sandy gravel. Prehistoric features: (1) small oval pit, fill charcoal-rich brown clay. 4 sherds early-middle bronze age pottery in coarse, heavily flint-gritted , fabric. 3 body sherds dark brown, one base sherd dark brown with buff exterior, (2) pit with similar fill to (1) but sterile, (1) and (2) were on the crest of a low hill overlooking a small tributary of the Chelmer. 1m from top of brickearth around the south end of a ditch containing medieval peg tile fragments (see EHER 1328) a scatter of flints was found, unrelated to any feature. One blade was unpatinated, there were 3 flakes, one was heavily retouched, also a finely flaked, in brown-stained flint, Neolithic-Bronze Age scraper, 'not strictly typologically early Bronze Age as there is no scale flaking, but still possibly Beaker date'. <1> - <4> Aerial photograph. <5> This site would have been destroyed by the quarrying on the site. <6>