Test Pit 15 - 79 High Street
The bungalow was built in 1976 on an old Bramley apple orchard owned by George Palmer. The pit was located in the back garden. The pit was located 8.9 metres from the High Street.
This test pit was excavated to a depth of 0.4m, uncovering evidence of a trench slot running through the southern part of the test pit where a pipe was believed to have been laid. This part was left unexcavated, and digging continued in the northern part of the pit to a depth of 0.8m whereupon solid clay layers were reached. The excavations were halted at this level and the test pit was recorded and backfilled.
The pottery from this test pit included small quantities of Romano British ware, Hedingham Ware, Late Medieval Ware, Glazed Red Earthenware and four Victorian-era sherds.
Other finds from the pit included a metal nail, brick and tile fragments, and some oyster shell fragments. The faunal assemblage comprised a single bone of fox.
Located in the land between the main southern cluster of village houses and the Church to the north, the pottery finds from Test Pit 15 indicate the area has largely functioned as fields since the Roman period, with breaks in use during the Saxon period and also during the post-medieval period. This is a similar picture to that observed at Test Pit 22 located nearby, and also in pits 4 and 26, together suggesting that a gap of open fields existed for much of the last 2,000 years between the main village core and the village church, the latter of which has two moated manorial sites near to it.
This test-pit produced small quantities of Glazed Red Earthenware and English Stoneware dated to the post-medieval period and a small assemblage of 21 sherds dating from the Victorian era. Other finds consisted of metal nails, a handle and other scraps, a bone shirt button, stone, mortar, charcoal, glass, clay pipe stem and brick fragments.
The finds suggest this site probably had a marginal use such as fields or orchard until the Victorian era.
For an overview of the site and finds, please click on the image of the exhibition poster which is the first image in the gallery below.
For detailed analysis of the finds, please see the results sheet for this pit, which is available as a download at the bottom of this page.
For reports and maps relating to all of the test pits, please see the documents available on our results page.
Hot. Good day. Few interesting finds.
Hot. Not many finds – a little disappointing that we found a sewage drain and evidence of possible other workings. Stopped after Context 8 as hit solid clay.
Please click on a photograph to display a larger image.