ENN107103 - 9 High Street, 2012 (Trial Trench)

{1} Archaeological evaluation, comprising the excavation of six trial trenches, was undertaken on a block of land to the north of 9 High Street, Earls Barton. The work was undertaken prior to the submission of planning proposals for the residential development of the land. In the southern half of the site evidence was found for a Roman settlement, possibly a small farmstead. The remains consisted of three, perhaps four, relatively substantial, steep-sided ditches that may form part of a number of enclosures, two pits, a small, keyhole-shaped oven, a dark, charcoal-flecked occupation layer and a circular hearth. A small assemblage of Roman pottery, mostly dating to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, with some later Roman fabrics also present, and fragments of animal bone were recovered from the features. Later activity was encountered near the centre of the site where the remains of a timber building, possibly a barn, and an associated ditch were investigated. The remains appeared to relate to a roughly rectangular 'platform’, visible as a slight earthwork on the surface of the field; no dating evidence, other than an iron nail, was recovered from the remains, but the location of the building in the corner of a field shown on a late 18th-century map of the area suggests that it dates to the post-medieval period. An undated ditch in the north-east corner of the site may be prehistoric as its fill had a leached appearance and it contained a small ‘crumb’ of possible prehistoric pottery, although this may have been residual.