ENN104133 - College Place and Market House Courtyard (Trial trench)

{1} An archaeological evaluation was carried out by Northamptonshire Archaeology in College Place and Market House Courtyard, Brackley, Northamptonshire. Due to constraints, the street frontage and the area immediately to the rear of the street frontage could not be investigated, and the evaluation could only be undertaken in the central and eastern part of the site. The earliest feature encountered was a medieval ditch with a possible bank, which probably predates the expansion of the planned medieval town in the late 12th /early 13th century. Close to the eastern edge of the site there were a number of pits, probably cess pits, which broadly date to the 13th century and are probably related to the burgage plots associated with the expansion of the new town. The ground level in College Place appears to have been raised by at least half a metre in the late 15th century. Until the mid 20th century the area was occupied by gardens and orchards, before being cleared for industrial and agricultural buildings and yards