Monument record 1721 - Romano-British Settlement, south of Oak Ditch

Field survey in 1985 as part of the Raunds Area Project had identified Roman settlement in two fields either side of the Oak Ditch. Settlement in the southern field dated to the 3rd-4th centuries. Six trenches were excavated in the area of the southern settlement in 1986 prior to the construction of the A45, of which significant archaeology was found in one. The area appears to have been peripheral to the main focus of settlement in the northern field [HER 1340] and used for ironstone quarrying and crop-processing. Subsequently, two small stone buildings occupied a rectangular enclosure with a small cemetery outside.

{1} Enclosures were identified either side of a north-bound drove road. Excavated lengths of the ditches proved to be Roman which suggests a similar date for the enclosures as a whole. The boundaries of the enclosure system were identified (by trial trenches) as being shallow gullies ranging in depth from 0.1m to 0.44m.

{2} Field survey in 1985 revealed an area of Roman settlement in two fields either side of a deep valley close to Mallows Cotton. The finds suggested that occupation in the southern field was restricted to the late C3rd and C4th. Since part of the southern field was threatened by the construction of the A45/A605 New Road, a series of six trenches was excavated in 1986 within the proposed corridor. Among them, only Trench 1 revealed significant archaeological features and elsewhere the subsoil had been badly disturbed by modern agriculture. The earliest activity was a series of deep, irregular pits up to 4.5m wide x 2m deep had been cut through ironstone rubble to reach an underlying stratum of tabular ironstone c.1m thick. Each pit had been backfilled with the upcast from the next anf layers of burnt debris and refuse had been thrown into the tops of the exhausted quarries. It is probable that the ironstone was used for smelting iron, although no other evidence of this process was recovered.

Evidence of crop-processing included two corn driers together with fragments of rotary querns.
Corn Drier 1 was apparently unenclosed and free-standing. It was of T-shaped design, with the cross-arm returned parallel to and half way down the main flue. It was built of small ironstone blocks in alternate pitched and horizontal courses. The entire structure had been set into a hollow and the flues were un-floored, except at the mouth of the main flue where a large limestone block formed the fire base. No trace of a stokehole was found.
Corn Drier 2 was sealed beneath the floor of a later building. It was Y-shaped with the side arms connected around a central, free-standing triangular arrangement of limestone blocks. The walls of the flue were of limestone laid in horizontal courses. Its stokehole had been destroyed.

At around the turn of the C3rd into the C4th two adjacent rectangular stone buildings were erected on a south-east to north-west alignment within a rectangular enclosure formed by irregular, shallow gullies. The buildings lay at the base of a natural scarp beside a small stream. Structure 1 underwent three phases of use during the later C3rd and C4th, throughout which it was divided into two main rooms. Structure 2 was represented by a rectangular spread of limestone flags which overlay the
rakings of corn-drier 2. Although interpreted as the floor of a building. It could possibly have formed an area of hard-standing beside Structure 1.

{3} In the southern field the magnetometer survey identified elements of a rectilinear enclosure system measuring 100m by at least 70m which partly enclosed the excavated area.

{4} The northenmost building of 14m by 5.4m had been divided into two rooms, with that at the west further sub-divided. Three distinct phases were denoted by the repositioning of walls and floors. Coins of the houses of Vaentinian (AD 364-78) and Theodosius (AD 388-95) suggest a late 4th-century date.

{5} Geophysical survey at Warth Park helped define the limits of the Roman settlement, which appears to terminate quite distinctly along its western edge at a double-ditched former road or trackway. The settlement appears to be defined by superimposed but incomplete rectilinear enclosures defined by ditches. These enclose and are surrounded by large numbers of individual anomalies representing pits and other features.

{6} Trial trench excavation identified a shallow ditch feature towards the south-east end of T6. It was orientated roughly north-south, with a width of 0.72m x depth of 0.23m. Two pieces of flint were recovered from its grey brown silt sand fill, one of which was a side scraper.

<1> Parry S., 1993, Raunds Area Survey Report, p.109 (unchecked) (Draft). SNN1175.

<2> Dix B. (editor), 1986-7, The Raunds Area Project: Second Interim Report, p.17 (checked) (Article). SNN76070.

<3> Parry S.; Webster M., 1991, Scalley Farm, Raunds (Centre SP 9820 7320), p.67 (checked) (Article). SNN108337.

<4> Parry S. et al, 2006, Raunds Area Survey: An Archaeological Study of The Landscape of Raunds, Northamptonshire 1985-94, Site 11 (unchecked) (Book). SNN105780.

<5> Bartlett A., 2011, Warth Park, Raunds, Northamptonshire: Report on Archaeological Geophysical Survey, 2011, p. 5-6 (Report). SNN110680.

<6> Marshall N., 2011, Warth Park Phase II, Raunds, Northamptonshire: Archaeological Evaluation, p.7-8 (checked) (Report). SNN108259.

Record last edited

May 26 2022 10:51AM