Monument record 3728/1/2 - Bronze Age double-ditched round barrow and pits, Grendon Quarry

A ring ditch partly excavated in advance of gravel extraction at Grendon during the 1970s. The monument comprised two concentric ring ditches, the outer enclosing an area circa 30 metres in diameter, the inner circa 13 metres in diameter. Neither was excavated. Five roughly aligned pits located between the two ditches on the southeast side of the monument were examined. One contained a crouched inhumation. A short distance to the southeast was a small ring ditch or gully. Two pits had been inserted into its fill, each containing a biconical food vessel. A little to the northeast were two further pits, each containing a collared urn, one of them with cremated bone and a bronze pin fragment.

{2} The north-west group comprises at least seven ring ditches, of which two are double-ditched (at SP87716230 and SP87816225). These are about 20 - 35m in diameter. The ring ditches are intersected by subrectangular enclosures and lengths of ditch. Fig.53.

{3} F14/15 was a double ring ditch with the outer ditch enclosing a platform c.30m in diameter. Neither ditch was excavated at gravel level; the inner ditch appeared as a series of linked pits containing quantities of pebbles and dark loam. Four Bronze Age urns were found in small pits to the east of the double ring ditch. Two bionical food vessels had been inserted in pits dug into the fill of an earlier ring ditch or gully and two tripartite collared urns were present in separate pits some 20m to the north.

{6} Finds from excavation. Four early Bronze Age urns, probably originating from round barrows.

<1> Northamptonshire SMR Collection of Aerial Photographs, Used with NMR & CUCAP collections (Photographs). SNN104822.

<2> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1979, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.54 Site 7 (checked) (Series). SNN77380.

<3> Jackson D.A., 1995, Archaeology at Grendon Quarry, Northamptonshire: Part 2, Other Prehistoric, Iron Age and Later Sites Excavated in 1974-5, and Further Observations Between 1976-80, p.5 (unchecked) (Report). SNN70994.

<4> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1982, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.199 Site 7 (checked) (Series). SNN77382.

<5> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1978, Archaeology in Northamptonshire 1977, p.179 (unchecked) (Journal). SNN2192.

<6> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1977, Archaeology in Northamptonshire 1976, p.209 (unchecked) (Report). SNN723.

<7> Thompson, M, Excavations at Grendon, Northamptonshire (Dissertation). SNN111970.

Record last edited

Dec 8 2023 11:36AM