Monument record 7150/2 - Pottery Manufacturing and ironworking at Wootton Fields Villa

An area of industrial activity was identified to the north-east of the villa building and included evidence for pottery production and iron-working.

{4} The investigation of 1999 located an extensive area of industrial activity immediately to the north of the villa. It evidently contained several hearths, furnaces, ovens or kilns, all partly obscured by an extensive spread of dark, charcoal rich soils. None of these features was excavated, as the area was to be preserved by reburial, so their functions were not determined. At least the later stages of this use appeared to post-date the disuse and demolition of the hypocaust room at the northern end of the villa.

This area was excavated in 2002. A series of hearths and ovens/furnaces lay to the immediate north of the villa building, and they appear to represent a final phase of industrial usage following the abandonment of at least parts of the main building, as evidenced by the presence of a small hearth in the northern room.

The pottery kiln was constructed within the fills of the narrow ditch system. No kiln furniture remained in situ, and it must have been furnished with a temporary central column and removable kiln bars at each firing. The chamber was half-filled with clay and scorched clays that must have come from a domed superstructure. To the south there was an oval stokehole. On the western side of the stokehole there was an opening into a second kiln chamber that lay largely beyond the excavated area.

A further kiln lay to the east, and was partly concealed beneath the fourth century dumps of soil and metalworking slag. It was a small horizontal-draught kiln with a central chamber and flues to the west and east. The vertical, clay-lined walls were burnt red, but much of the harder fired clay lining had been lost. A thin layer of grey brown charcoal stained loam covered the floor of the chamber and extended into the western, but not the eastern, stokehole, indicating that the fire had been set at the western end.

The northern half of the excavated area of 2002 contained a series of irregular hollows, filled with soils containing iron working debris.
In the one of the hollows the base was surfaced in stone, the stones were clean and unburnt but their upper surfaces had been worn smooth. The function of this surface is uncertain, it is tempting to to suggest that it may have formed a crushing floor for the preparation of iron ore for roasting prior to smelting, but there is no evidence that it had been used for this purpose.

A small deposit of pottery came from layer 215, one of the spreads of dark loam and tap slag within a shallow hollow on the northern part of the site. It comprised only 13 sherds, but the presence of a rusticated sherd and another with incised linear decoration suggest that the group dates to the fifth century AD. This context, and the other similar deposits containing slag, also produced much late Roman material and it seems most likely that the fifth century pottery is intrusive into these late Roman deposits rather than indicating an early Saxon date for the deposition of the iron working debris.

Much of the south western corner of this north-eastern area was occupied by an extensive but shallow pond, and associated ditches and pits. The pond was sub-rectangular in plan and was bottomed on an underlying bed of Lias Clay which would have retained water effectively.Stone rubble and a piece of structural timber was found in the pond fill but the outer surface of the timber had decayed thus removing any evidence of carpentry. Two upright posts were also found, suggesting that there had once been a platform or walkway running to the centre of the pond. To the west of the pobnd was a linear ditch system that probably drained in to the pond itself. A series of pits lay on the western and northern margins of the pond. 38 mid to late 4th century coins were recovered from the northern margin of the pond. The main cluster of coins was spread over a distance of at least 1m suggesting that they had not been within a small container and leaving it unclear whether they represent a single deposit or a slightly longer-term event.

<1> Chapman A., 2000, Archaeological Recording Of A Roman Villa At Wootton Fields, Northampton, January-February 1999 Asse, Section 2 (checked) (Report). SNN100291.

<1> Chapman A; Thorne A., 2004, Further Excavation at Wootton Fields Roman Villa, p.7-8 (unchecked) (Report). SNN104571.

<2> 2000-01, Northampton, Wootton Fields, Roman Villa, (checked) (Note). SNN103984.

<4> Chapman A., 2005, A Roman villa and an Anglo-Saxon burial at Wootton Fields, Northampton (Article). SNN112204.

Record last edited

May 22 2023 4:26PM