NHER 69821 (Monument record) - Bronze Age pit and undated ditches

February 2016. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
The six trenches excavated revealed a small number of features, including a prehistoric pit and three undated ditches.
The pit lay towards the southern end of the site and was found to contain a small assemblage of grog-tempered pottery of likely Early or Middle Bronze Age date.
The three linear features comprised a north-to-south aligned ditch crossing the central part of the area examined, a west-north-west to east-south-east aligned ditch to the north and a slightly more east-to-west aligned feature to the south. The alignments of these ditches suggest that they were most likely of relatively recent date, although no corresponding boundaries are shown on the available 19th-century maps.
Other features investigated included a wide shallow depression towards the northern end of the site that produced a single prehistoric worked flint and a number of animal bones. A sample taken from its fill was found to contain charcoal, additional fragments of animal bone and a small amount of magnetised material, including a single flake of hammerscale from iron smithing. A sample taken from an adjacent ditch also produced charcoal, with both producing little else in the way of carbonised plant macrofossils.
Unstratified finds were limited to a small assemblage of metal objects comprising a potentially medieval iron staple, a post-medieval hinge and a number of undatable iron objects, including two possible chisels and a possible weight.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 2 May 2026.