SNN112002 - Land off Station Road, Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire: Post-Excavation Assessment and Updated Project Design

This document presents an assessment of the significance of the results of archaeological investigations undertaken in advance of residential development at Station Road, Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, centred at NGR SP 96069 69793. The document also contains an Updated Project Design for analysis and publication of the results of the fieldwork. The planning permission (12/00648/OUT) granted by East Northamptonshire Council was subject to a condition requiring the implementation of a scheme of archaeological investigation. As part of this, an open area excavation was undertaken during April and May 2014 with an intermittent watching brief carried out during July, August and September. The open area excavation covering 0.8ha examined part of a middle Iron Age settlement. It comprised a series of enclosures, some of which contained roundhouses (two), storage pits (40) and post-built structures (three). Unenclosed pits and post-holes were also identified and based on their pottery assemblage were contemporary with other activity within the settlement. Evidence for later, but still middle Iron Age activity, was represented by boundary ditches, adjacent to one of which was a human burial. There was no evidence within the development area that the settlement continued in use into the late Iron Age. The only other firm evidence for activity within the development area comprised a post-medieval field boundary, which is shown the 1900 Ordnance Survey map but which may have originated in the medieval period. The data-sets produced by the investigations have the potential to address local and regional research objectives relating to middle Iron Age settlement, economy and society. A programme of further analysis and dissemination is, therefore, proposed. The required tasks, project team and timescale to complete the project are presented in the Updated Project Design. The end product will be the publication of the results of the investigations in the Albion Archaeology monograph series and, subject to the landowner’s permission with regard to the artefacts, the deposition of the project archive in the appropriate county store.