Monument record 401/0/1 - Site of late Iron Age settlement

Several rectilinear enclosures, a possible roundhouse within one and surrounding field system. A small amount of pottery dated to the late Iron Age

{1} In the eastern field, the main archaeological features are two conjoined rectilinear enclosures, oriented on a west-south-west to east-north-east axis. These intersect to the north with a less regular pattern of smaller enclosures, which probably belong to a separate phase of the site’s development. Further north, the survey has detected several lengths of ditch which do not form a particularly coherent or intelligible pattern. A penannular anomaly at the southern end of the eastern field is likely to represent a roundhouse approximately 10m in diameter, with a possible entrance to the east.
Another roundhouse may be represented by a more fragmentary anomaly which lies approximately 40m to the north-west.
In the south-western corner of the western field, there is a complex of roughly square enclosures, from which four parallel linear ditches extend to the east. Seventy meters north of this complex there is a separate enclosure which appears, from the interrupted form of its anomaly, to have suffered extensive plough damage. Other ditches have been detected at various places within the field, but they are too scattered and disjointed to merit individual description.

{2} In the eastern field was a main enclosure, or conjoined enclosures within which were other less substantial ditches and gullies likely to represent small drainage and subdivisions of the enclosure. A small penannular gully of a possible roundhouse indicate that dwelling activity would have been focused upon the flat crest of the hill in the southern part of the eastern field.
A second enclosure was located in the south-west corner of the western field. Trench 15 identified the east and west ditches of this enclosure. The eastern arm of the enclosure had been recut to make a much more substantial feature, tripling the depth of the original ditch. The fills of the earlier feature are much more sterile in comparison to the darker, charcoal rich fills of the later cut. Potentially, only small sections of the enclosure had the later widening and deepening, as indicated by the terminal end.

A very small group of pottery was recovered from only a few contexts. The presence of a high proportion of sherds containing grog, including one in a grey fabric with a burnished surface, suggests a probably late Iron Age date, perhaps the 1st century BC.
Cereal grains/chaff and seeds of common weeds were present at a low to moderate density within all but one sample. A small quantity of cereal processing waste is also present within the assemblages and it would appear that cereal production was largely based on the local damp clay/loam soils, some of which may have been newly cultivated. The presence of stinking mayweed seeds within these assemblages may indicate that the features are of later Iron Age date, as this weed (which is commonly found on heavy clay soils) is rarely seen within features which pre-date the introduction of the heavier ‘Roman’ plough.

<1> Simmonds, C, and Walford, J., 2014, Archaeological geophysical survey of land east of Watford Road, Crick, Northamptonshire (Report). SNN110117.

<2> Clements, P., 2015, Archaeological earthwork survey and trial trench evaluation on land at Watford Road, Crick, Northamptonshire, February - March 2015, p.30 (Report). SNN110423.

<3> Horne, B (editor), 2016, South Midlands Archaeology (46), p. 40 (Journal). SNN111326.

Record last edited

Jan 23 2019 3:29PM