ENN108615 - Handley Park, 2014 (Trial trench)

Site code: HPA14. Evidence for Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age activity, comprising a pit and a ditch from which a small assemblage of pottery was recovered, was encountered on the south-east facing slope overlooking the valley of Silverstone Brook. In the same area the remains of a small Roman settlement, probably a farmstead and associated field system, were identified. The Roman features contained pottery, animal bone and fragments of roman root tile, the latter indicating that there may have been a building in the vicinity. the Middle/Late Saxon remains comprised a circular or oval enclosure. Pottery dateable to the 7th to 10th centuries, a fragment of an iron pin or bobbin and a metal fragment, possibly part of a bucket with mineralised wood fibres adhering to its surface, were recovered from the enclosure ditch. The archaeological features broadly corresponded with anomalies detected by a geophysical survey results, possibly due to the highly variable geology. Many of the anomalies were confirmed as geological in origin and several features were identified that were not detected by the geophysical survey. Information from OASIS Online Form.