ENN110840 - Land off West Haddon Road, 2022 (Trial trenching)

The excavation of the seven trial trenches revealed numerous archaeological features, which largely corresponded with the results of the geophysical survey. This appeared to confirm an extensive and complex area of archaeology which is likely to be mainly concentrated in the northern half of the site. The features, including linear ditches, probable ring ditches, and occasional discrete features are thought to represent late prehistoric occupation. Intersecting ditches, the variable orientation of the features, and the close proximity of some of the features possibly indicate at least three phases of activity. Unfortunately, the recovered dating evidence, comprising a small assemblage of Iron Age pottery and an iron spearhead, was limited to a single probable ring-ditch. The lack of domestic refuse and artefacts within the probable linear enclosure ditches may reflect agricultural land use rather than dense settlement. A potential ritual landscape, indicated by the possible ring-ditches of burial mounds could therefore have been superseded by later agricultural land division. The archaeology was sealed by a shallow undulating subsoil deposit which may be the remains of a former (medieval/post-medieval) plough soil or plough-disturbed natural interface, which was, in turn, overlain by the current plough soil.