ENN109542 - Daventry Middlemore 8E, 2019 (Excavation)

A small quantity of residual worked flint of broadly prehistoric date provides evidence of a limited and perhaps transitory presence in the landscape during the prehistoric period. The remains of several late Iron Age/early Roman (c 50 BC-AD 120) ditches divided the landscape into rectilinear enclosures/fields, probably for agricultural purposes; no structural evidence suggestive of settlement was present. A small number of scattered pits and postholes are suggestive of isolated agricultural activity. A cluster of inter-cutting pits in the south-west containing small quantities of pottery, animal bone, fired clay and charred plant remains are suggestive of nearby settlement activity. Roman remains comprised a NE-SW aligned trackway/road formed of a metalled surface and two flanking ditches that probably had a drainage function. A very small quantity of Roman pottery suggests that it may have been in use during the early-middle Roman period. It is possible that the trackway/road influenced the layout of the late Iron Age/early Roman enclosure/field system to its south-east, though it appears to have continued in use after the cessation of the enclosures and perhaps formed part of a local network that connected to the nearby major Roman road of Watling Street. Remains of land use activity post-dating the Roman period were scarce and indicative of medieval/post-medieval agricultural activities.