Monument record 27/0/2 - Probable Medieval Building Platform & Close (Morphed Aerial Archaeology Interpretation)

Earthwork: Good quality photography

{1} The area was devoid of buildings in 1840.

{2} On the west side of the hollow way and the existing street are the very fragmentary remains of rectangular closes bounded by shallow ditches or low scarps. Disturbed areas at their east ends suggests former buildings. The southernmost closes end just below the massive scarp which bounds the east side of the manor house site.

{4} In the northern half of the field there is a very complex pattern of linear and curvilinear anomalies. Many of these are straight, and form a loosely rectilinear arrangement with axes aligned roughly east-west and north-south. The remainder are more sinuous, and less coherently arranged. It is likely that each group represents a different phase of archaeological features; one superimposed on the other. Most probably, the rectilinear anomalies represent a set of ditches defining house and garden plots, or small paddocks, and the sinuous anomalies represent a later pattern of ditches or sunken trackways.
Some od the sinuous anomalies are particularly intense. Such intensity often indicates the presence of magnetically enhanced materials such as slag, ironstone or ceramics. These could be present as waste material, used to backfill ditches, or as metalling on the surface of tracks.

<1> 1840, Chacombe Tithe Map, (unchecked) (Map). SNN10747.

<2> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1982, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.26/Site 4 (checked) (Series). SNN77382.

<3> Northamptonshire SMR Collection of Aerial Photographs, Used with NMR & CUCAP collections (Photographs). SNN104822.

<4> Walford, J., 2013, Archaeological Geophysical Survey of the Village Land, Chacombe, Northamptonshire December 2012, p.4 (checked) (Report). SNN108595.

Record last edited

Sep 23 2022 2:50PM