SNN112152 - Bourton Way, Wellingborough and Station Road, Higham Ferrers: Two middle Iron Age settlements overlooking the River Nene in Northamptonshire

Two new housing developments in Wellingborough and Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, gave Albion Archaeology the opportunity to excavate there before building work began. Each excavation revealed part of a middle Iron Age settlement that was already known from previous excavations, and this publication takes a comparative overview of the whole of both settlements. Situated overlooking the River Nene, the two settlements were in prime topographic locations for a mixed farming economy, dominated by the husbandry of sheep/goat and cattle, and the growing of wheat and hulled barley. As is often the case on sites of this period, occasional evidence for non-agricultural activities such as textile-, bone- and antler-working were alos recovered. The bourton Way settlement in Wellingborough is thought to have covered about 4 hectares and comprised a central domestic focus of roundhouses, post-built structures and storage pits, surrounded by fields. In contrast, the station Road settlement in Higham Ferrers consisted of a loose arrangement of domestic and non-domestic enclosures, fields and boundaries spread over 3.5 hectares