SNN110860 - Land off Higham Road, Burton Latimer: Archaeological Field Evaluation, 2011

A planning application to Kettering Borough Council for residential development on land off Higham Road, Burton Latimer was granted on appeal by the Secretary of State (AN/2010/109602/01-L01). Previous non-intrusive evaluation work indicated that the site has considerable potential for the preservation of Iron Age and Roman archaeological remains. As a result, a condition was attached to the planning permission requiring the implementation of a programme of archaeological work. The nature of the work required to fulfil the condition was set out in briefs issued by Northamptonshire County Council’s County Archaeological Advisor (CAA). The first stage of that work comprised intrusive archaeological field evaluation in the form of trial trenching. This report presents the results of the work. Albion Archaeology was commissioned by CgMs Consulting Ltd, on behalf of David Wilson Homes (South Midlands), to undertake the trial trenching. It comprised the investigation of seventeen 50m-long trial trenches within the 8ha development area. The trench layout was designed to investigate geophysical anomalies and to test the apparently “blank” part of the site. The trial trenching located numerous furrows in the eastern part of the development area, indicating the location of medieval open fields. A small number of undated or modern features were also identified. However, the most significant evidence comprised part of a Romano-British settlement. The settlement was located in the western part of the development area (Trenches 10 –17) and extended over c. 1.8ha. It comprised a polygonal ditched enclosure with peripheral activity to the north. Pottery suggests that it was occupied between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, with no evidence for a late Iron Age precursor or continuity into the Saxon period. The enclosure was subdivided by a series of ditches. Many of the ditches had been redug, indicating continuity in layout over time. One possible roundhouse and a variety of possible stone walls/drains were identified. The finds assemblage was relatively large for an evaluation. It comprised 6.7kg of pottery, the majority of which comprised locally made vessels with small quantities of regional and continental imports. It also included ceramic building material, metal objects (mainly late Roman copper alloy coins and iron objects), ferrous smithing slag (including a hearth bottom), smelting slag, animal bone and oyster shell. Based on the animal bone and charred plant remains it seems likely that the occupants of the settlement were farmers. However, the presence of metallurgical debris suggests that iron-working was also undertaken within the settlement. The discovery of a Romano-British farmstead within the western part of the development area is significant because, although such settlements are relatively common in the region, they ‘are very unevenly distributed and poorly understood’ (Cooper 2006, 143).