Monument record 3738/0/13 - Post Medieval garden wall, Berry Close

A demolished garden wall identified during archaeological excavation. Previous evaluation had interpreted the demolition spread as the remains of a barn.

{2} Trench 2 was cut through a roughly rectangular platform c.19m x 8m, and which was faintly visible on the surface as a low earthwork. Running along the northern edge of the platform was a ditch. Parallel and 0.5m to the south of this was a shallow cut running down the centre of which was a very precise and well-defined sill beam slot 0.7m wide x 0.17m deep. An iron nail was recovered from the silt which had replaced the timber (which was 0.19m wide x at least 0.17m thick x over 1.6m long) when it decayed. To the south of the beam slot there was evidence for possible floors of rammed ironstone gravel and a poorly sorted mix of river pebbles and limestone gravel. A long, rectangular slot embedded within the latter was probably the remains of a further timber of similar proportions to the other. North of the floor layers a spread of limestone cobbles within a clay silt may be the remains of a collapsed dry stone wall.
The lack of pottery and animal bone within the remains of the possible building in the northern half of the site suggests that it was a barn or some other agricultural building rather than domestic. It appears to have been timber-built, on a platform which is still visible within the pasture field. It appears to have stood against an east-west running property boundary to its north. The building was not shown on first edition Ordnance Survey maps of the 1880s, nor the 1771 Enclosure Map for Earls Barton. This suggests that it dates to the mid C18th or earlier.

{3} Excavation undertaken in 2015 found that the remains identified during the evaluation were of a demolished garden wall.

<1> G.S.B. Prospection Ltd., 2011, Land at 9 High Street, Earls Barton; Magnetometer Survey, (unchecked) (Report). SNN109847.

<2> Carlyle S., 2012, Land at 9 High Street, Earls Barton, Northamptonshire: Archaeological Evaluation, p.11-12,15-16 Fig.6 (checked) (Report). SNN109416.

<3> Carlsson, C., 2015, Land to the rear of 11 Berry Close, Earls Barton, Northamptonshire: Archaeological investigation (Report). SNN110122.

Record last edited

Jul 1 2020 3:22PM