NHER 69276 (Monument record) - Potentially Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, Roman and undated remains

February-March 2023. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
The 47 trenches excavated revealed a number of scattered linear and discrete features, although these remains were mostly undated, with no significant concentrations.
There was some limited evidence for prehistoric activity, including a small, multi-period assemblage of worked flints and pottery sherds of probable Early Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age date. The material was though most either unstratified or probably residual within later features. The only potentially prehistoric features were a number of pits that produced small quantities of Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pottery. Samples taken from the fills of two of these pits produced small assemblage of charred plant macrofossils, including indeterminate cereal grains, legume and goosegrass seeds and fragments of hazelnut shell.
The one convincingly-dated feature was a sub-rectangular pit in the north-west part of the site that contained a small assemblage of predominantly local Roman pottery. A sample from the fill of this pit was found to contain a high density of charred wheat chaff and occasional grains - material which potentially represented parching waste.
The only post-Roman find recovered was a post-medieval brick fragment, which was found in an otherwise undated ditch in the southernmost part of the site.
The numerous undated ditches displayed a wide variety of alignments, suggesting they were probably associated with multiple phases of past activity.
The undated discrete features were widely scattered and mostly fairly unremarkable possible pits. The more notable examples included a feature in the westernmost part of the site that contained fragments of fired clay that were potentially derived from an oven. A sample from the fill of this pit produced charcoal but nothing else in the way of charred plant macrofossils.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 7 August 2025.