SNN111228 - 11-12 Newland Street, Kettering, Northamptonshire: Archaeological evaluation, 2018

In June 2017, two evaluation trenches were excavated at a proposed development site in Kettering town centre. The site is located within a previously identified zone of late medieval tenements known as The Newland, which is understood from documentary evidence to have been set out in a planned expansion of the town in the late 13th century. The evaluation established that buried archaeological features deposits exist at the site, and significantly, that these remains attest to occupation and/or activity from the 13th/ 14th century to the 15th / 16th century. Where features were devoid of dateable artefacts, they can be assigned to the late medieval period on account of characteristic agricultural assemblages of carbonised cereal and plant remains. It is considered that at least two of the features, a pit and a ditch, may represent tenement boundary features that had been in-filled by the 14th / 15th century. To date, the discoveries at 11 to 12 Newland Street represent the most significant body of archaeological evidence for late medieval planned expansion on the north side of the town. Residual late Iron Age pottery was also recovered, its condition suggesting that nearby occupation deposits had been disturbed in the late medieval period. The report includes a survey and photographic record of a historic cellar exposed on the Newland Street frontage after the demolition of historic buildings.