Iron Age or Roman red hill, Bradwell marshes (EHER 2031)

Red hill, Late Iron Age salt-working site.

Red hill, probable salt-working site. <1> <2. 1977. Fieldwalking survey. 'Red Hill Field'. Bright red soil in a cultivated field. There is a scatter of briquetage in the centre of the mound, and there is very luxurious growth of grass here. See also TM 0242 0637. <3> <4> August 2012. Watching brief. There are at least four Red Hills within this field - trenching in advance of Turbine 106, Bradwell Wick wind-farm revealed a previously unknown red hill and saltern site which was excavated, other sites were identified by geophysical survey. The excavated site dates to the Late Iron Age (c.10-60AD) and consists of two phases of salt production. Both phases were sited upon a deliberately modified clay platform and separated in time by the deposition of a substantial amount of red earth material. The site was short-lived and produced only a small assemblage of pottery and briquetage, but one in-keeping with the NE Essex saltern tradition. <5> See also <6>. NRHE data transfer: no new information. NRHE summary description, 385953: A red hill was found by D. Gurney in 1977 indicating a probable Iron Age and Roman salt works. NRHE summary description, 1596117: Sites like these are commonly referred to as 'red hills', due to the characteristic presence of low mounds of heat-reddened earth at these sites. The location of one of the wind turbines had already been moved due to the detection of a large saltern or red hill site during preliminary geophysical survey work. However, the revised location also contained the remains of a less substantial saltern a short distance to the NE, buried under thick deposits of marsh clay and topsoil. This roughly 20m diameter mound of burnt earth was found to both overlie and be cut by a number of distinctive hearth, tank and gully features that are indicative of salt production by means of salt water evaporation. Both the red earth deposits and cut features contained fragments of briquetage vessels and furniture associated with and generated by this activity. This saltern and red hill site is judged to be of late 1st century BC/early 1st century AD date and is one of the most extensively investigated sites of its type along the NE Essex coast. Information from OASIS Online Form.