Monument record 4488 - Possible Bronze Age to Romano-British Settlement

Cropmarks of a complex of Iron Age and Roman settlement features including a ditched trackway, enclosures, linear ditches and a Bronze Age Flint working sites. Roman pottery of C3rd to C4th date was found and kiln furnture.

{1} Ditched trackway,enclosures,linear ditches and flint-working sites (centred SP 722665),W and NW of Chapel Brampton village,on Northampton Sand between 110mand 120m above OD.Air photographs show a sinuous ditched trackway traceable for more than 500m SE from Brampton Hill to a point just W of the village.here,though little is visible on air photographs,it seems to have met two other trackways appraoching the site from the S and from the W.Some short ditches and a small rectangular enclosure are visible to the SW of the assumed junction and other indeterminate ditches to the N.To the NW (SP 722665)there is a large well marked rectangular enclosure with rounded corners and entrances in the SE and NE sides;it has a small internal enclosure in its E corner.Linear ditches run to the SE.Further NW,on both sides of the trackway,are further traces of rectangular and irregular enclosures.The trackway can be traced to the W of Brampton Hill (at SP 717667) where a short length of it,intersected by a linear feature,is vsible on air photographs.This trackway was cut oblquely by a pipeline trench in 1970 (at SP 72226644).The ditches were said to be 3m-4m wide at the top and almost 2m deep.No dating evidence or metalling was discovered between the ditches.Worked flints,including cores and scrapers,have been found over the area around the large enclosure.

Enclosures,ring ditches and linear ditches (centred SP 717664;fig 26),N of the village,on Northampton Sand between 105m and 120m above OD.Air photographs show cropmarks of great complexity,covering some 10 ha.They include a multitude of cojoined and intersecting sub- rectangular enclosures and linear ditches some of which may be trackways.There is a double ring ditch (at SP 71706633) on the SW edge of the complex and other ring ditches within enclosures lie to
the N(SP 71956643 and 71716646).Within the area (SP 717664) worked flints,said to be of Bronze Age type,and Roman pottery of the 2nd to 4th centuries have been discovered.

{3} (Centred SP 7166). An extensive area of cropmarks of enclosures and road ditches. IA and Ro sherds were found in January 1966 at 713661, and in April 1966, Ro sherds and a few worked flints were found at 716662, where APs showed traces of an enclosures. Probably the site of a RB Farm or settlement.

{5} This site falls on arable land that is either gently sloping or level, and is under crop. The farmer has neither seen nor found anything but said that he had been asked by a boy unknown to him for permission to walk the fields. He found some very small copper coins (Antoninian?) and a little pottery.

{6} Area SP 713661. Scatter of Roman sherds including 3rd-4th century colour coated and Oxfordshire mortarium sherds found in 1973. A few fragments of grey, square-sectioned kiln-bar and clay dome fragments, suggesting a pottery kiln were found at SP 71316603. Material in Northampton Museum.

{7} (SP 713661). Recorded as possible ditches on AP in 1978.

<1> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1981, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.18+21 Site 8 (checked) (Series). SNN77381.

<2> HOLLOWELL R., 1971, Aerial Photography and Fieldwork in the Upper Nene Valley, p.5 (unchecked) (Journal). SNN106546.

<3> Hollowell, R., Robert Hollowell's Aerial Photographic Archive, SP717664, 718663, 720666 (Photographic prints (B&W)). SNN110835.

<4> Northamptonshire SMR Collection of Aerial Photographs (Aerial Photograph(s)). SNN104822.

<5> Seaman, BH, 1969, Field investigators comments, 06-MAR-1969 (Notes). SNN111907.

<6> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1974, Archaeology In Northamptonshire 1973, P. 88 (Article). SNN9109.

<7> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1979, Archaeology in Northamptonshire 1978, P. 96 (Article). SNN45225.

<8> Brown, A E (ed), 1971, Bulletin of the Northamptonshire Federation of Archaeological Societies (Journal). SNN13960.

<9> Northamptonshire SMR Collection of Aerial Photographs, CUAP,ZW38,ZW32-5 (Aerial Photograph(s)). SNN104822.

Record last edited

Feb 10 2025 6:46PM