Site of medieval house at Monks Cottage, Great Sampford (EHER 1581)

The remains of a medieval house were recorded in the grounds of Monks Cottage.

Medieval house site in the grounds of Monks Cottage. <1> Owner reported finding pottery and a possible stone floor while constructing a new garage and driveway. The site was inspected and features recorded. The driveway had cut up to 0.5m through a stone floor resting directly on boulder clay. Garage footings revealed a broad, shallow ditch running north-south immediately east of the present boundary. The ditch was cut in three places by the garage footings and pottery was recovered from the sections. The ditch contained three fills. The upper layer contained post-medieval material (see EHER 1582). The middle and earliest layers contained medieval pottery. A stone floor lay about 0.3m east of the ditch. Pottery from the floor area centred on the 13th and 17th centuries. Precise contexts of the pottery rarely clear but none of the later group was from below the stones. The floor was slightly sloping, ran north to south and stopped at the edge of an apparent east to west ditch, north of the present pavement. The ditch was associated with 16th to 18th century pottery. A small pit lay west of the broad, shallow ditch. It contained two small sandy sherds. A substantial amount of unstratified material but only three sherds worthy of comment: a cooking-pot rim, paralleled at Mile End, dated there as late 12th to 13th centuries, a jug rim, and twisted handle, probably a Hedingham product, though the fabric is not typical. Metal finds included unstratified except iron nails in the broad ditch and among the cobbles. Limestone, including a possible Purbeck marble fragment, and greensand, present as floor cobbles. Cobbled area probably dateable as 13th century, almost certainly being the floor of a house demolished in early post medieval times. Timber from the house may have been reused in the present cottage. <2> Report on metalwork in EHER. None definitely claimed as medieval. Site Assessment = Site part destroyed by garage and new driveway. <3>