ENN111358 - Ashlea House, 2023 (Trial Trench)

The evaluation encountered archaeological remains associated with Iron Age and Early Roman settlement investigated previously to the south of the site, at Darsdale Farm and in the grounds of Darsdale Residential Home. The remains investigated at Ashlea House appear to be peripheral to areas of settlement and more intense areas of agricultural activity and are probably related to outlying agricultural enclosures, such as paddocks and in-fields. The features comprised four shallow ditches (one of which corresponds with a cropmark visible on aerial photographs of the area) and a small pit. A small assemblage of Late Iron Age to Early Roman pottery was recovered from the pit and two of the ditches, along with a few fragments of fired clay, and a soil sample taken from one ditch contained generally small amounts of poorly preserved charcoal and very occasional charred seeds. The general paucity of finds from these features supports their interpretation as being agricultural in purpose, located at a distance from areas of habitation.