SNN110441 - Land at Station Road, Long Buckby, Northamptonshire: Archaeological evaluation, October 2012

In February 2012, an archaeological evaluation, comprising the excavation of twenty-two trial trenches, was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology on a block of land to the west of Station Road, Long Buckby, Northamptonshire. The work, which was commissioned by CgMs Consulting, acting on behalf of Hallam Land Management, was undertaken prior to the submission of planning proposals for the residential development of the land. In the western corner of the site there was a small ditch and a roughly parallel gully, from which was recovered a small assemblage of Roman pottery; the pottery from the ditch could only be broadly dated to the Roman period, but the pottery from the gully mostly came from two 2nd-century vessels. The features may be the peripheral remains of a small farming settlement, the focus of which may lie beyond the site, beneath the railway embankment or further to the west. Medieval plough furrows, the remains of the open field system that once surrounded the village of Long Buckby, were encountered across the entire site; variations in their alignment suggest that the site covers parts of four, perhaps five former open fields. The ridge and furrow earthworks that were characteristically formed by medieval ploughing were probably razed in the 20th century to suit the needs of modern mechanised farming. With the exception of the medieval furrow system, no other features were encountered other than a small undated ditch and a modern rubbish pit in the southern half of the site, and a possible grubbed out hedge or natural depression in the bedrock in the extreme northern corner.