SNN111059 - Archaeological Mitigation at the Sawmills site, Northampton Road, Brackley, Northamptonshire, September to November 2014

Between September and November 2014 MOLA Northampton carried out archaeological mitigation on land at the former Sawmills site, Brackley, Northamptonshire. A naturally-formed linear hollow, likely created during the Holocene, was the setting for part of an Iron Age (450/400BC – 250/200BC) settlement, the primary focus of which was grain storage. Within the hollow a series of structures were established including a roundhouse-type building and four-post structures, very likely granaries. On the slightly higher chalky ground there was at least one further four-post structure plus multiple grain-storage pits, pits and a possible well. A complete bone-handled reaping hook was recovered within the roundhouse; saddle querns and discrete deposits of burnt grain were also recovered from features across the site. Small quantities of late Iron Age pottery recovered from the final fills of features and the deposits filling the hollow (sealing the early-middle Iron Age activity) indicate that grain storage had concluded by this time and that the settlement had either contracted or been abandoned.