ENN112204 - HS2: Blackgrounds Farm, 2021-22 (Excavation)

Archaeological recording was carried out across Blackgrounds Central and East, targeting areas where geophysical survey and trial trenching had previously identified extensive Iron Age and Roman activity. C31059B formed the focus of the Roman activity, and it may represent the periphery of a small Roman town. The activity comprised predominantly craft and industrial workshops with associated working areas focussed in the south-west and centre of C31059B. These were primarily associated with metalworking, specifically smithing, though evidence of textile and woodworking was also present in the recovered artefactual assemblages. This activity was established in the late Iron Age/early Roman period, and it likely continued until the early 5th century. In the late Roman period, three possible domestic rectangular stone structures with an associated burial plot, were noted in the south-east of the area. In the north of C31059 (A and B) a series of 15 burials, potentially part of a cemetery beyond the boundaries of the Roman town, were also identified. Possible Saxon/medieval quarry pits were identified in C31059A, and remnants of ridge and furrow cultivation were identified across all of the Archaeological Recording areas The two Archaeological Recording areas at Blackgrounds East (C31058 and C31064) investigated the periphery of a late Iron Age and early Roman settlement, which formed the focus of settlement in the landscape when the middle to late Iron Age settlement previously identified in the Blackgrounds North was abandoned. The most notable feature was a stone lined pit, which contained a crouched inhumation burial, located in C31064