Monument record 7030/1 - Site of Iron Age settlement, Crick Hotel

Part of the wider Iron Age settlement at DIRFT and the southernmost of the individual sites. The Crick Hotel site, of 2.7ha, was excavated 1998. Comprising house clusters and enclosures as well as a major boundary, it was occupied from the early Iron Age at a date in the 6th or 5th century BC until the 1st century BC

{1} A watching brief was carried out in 1997 during the construction of the DIRFT East access road. The majority of the road length was free of archaeological features, apart from its north-east end where three phases of Iron Age activity were identified. The earliest phase was a roundhouse gully with post-holes in the interior and a large pit outside it. The second phase was a straight-sided field or plot boundary and a latest phase of a sub-circular enclosure ditch. The paucity of finds suggests the activity lay on the preiphery of settlement.

{2} Excavation of the Crick Hotel site was undertaken in 1998 as part of the wider archaeological investigation of the eastern expansion of the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT). An Iron Age settlement was founded here in the early Iron Age- radiocarbon dates from the earliest features dated to the 6th and 5th centuries BC. The earliest features included a substantial ditched boundary as well as a ring gully and an oval enclosure measuring c 30m x 20m.
The boundary ditch was later abandoned and relocated to the south and was subsequently recut and redefined, continuing in use for the remainder of the site's lifespan. All successive features were located to the north of this boundary and initially comprised the excavation of another enclosure immediately to the north, and respecting the alignment of, the first. In later phases successive ring gullies were excavated, although earlier features were also retained and redefined. The earliest ring gully appears to have been the dominant structure and it was only in the last phase that it finally went out of use.

The enclosures appear to have been intended primarily for stock and there were indications for zoning of activities within the settlement. Finds included a spindle whorl and loom weights, as well as tap slag and evidence of copper-alloy working. There were low temperature ovens present used perhaps for food production metalworking. The animal bone evidence indicates animal butchery and bones from cattle, horses, pigs and sheep were kept and bred. Dogs were also present.

[The Iron Age settlement excavated at Crick Hotel is likely to be part of the same aggregated settlement as Crick Hotel to the north.]

<1> Masefield R., 1997, DIRFT East Access Road: An Archaeological Watching Brief, p.8 (checked) (Report). SNN104578.

<2> Masefield R. (ed), 2015, Origins, Development and Abandonment of an Iron Age Village (DIRFT Volume 2), p. 61-113 (Monograph). SNN110565.

Record last edited

May 3 2022 3:01PM