SNN112677 - An Archaeological Excavation on Land at Bury Dyke, Elms Farm, Crick, Northamptonshire, NN6 7TP

This document is a fieldwork report for an archaeological excavation carried out by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) on land at Bury Dyke, Elms Farm, Crick, Northamptonshire (NGR: SP 58907 72608) in advance of the construction of a residential development. The proposed development area at Elms Farm offered potential for archaeological remains due to its location within an area of standing earthworks within the medieval village core. Earlier archaeological interventions including trial trenching evaluation in 2015 followed by an earthwork survey, which confirmed the presence of medieval domestic activity, including a house platform in the eastern part of the site with related activity to the west. The earliest evidence from the 2017 programme of excavation comprised a single isolated Middle Bronze Age cremation burial. The remainder of identified activity ranged from the Saxo-Norman period to the site’s abandonment in the 13th century. A substantial pair of 12th century ditches aligned north-west to south-east defined the northern boundary of properties fronting Church Street to the south-west and an open area of closes to the north-east. By the late 12th century the now silted up southern ditch was overlain by small masonry structures, likely representing privies, and associated with a fragmentary boundary wall. Excavation also confirmed the presence of two hollow ways previously identified during the earthwork survey. The more substantial hollow way consisted of twin parallel ditches defining a metalled surface extending north-east across the boundary ditch towards the village fields. These linear features were subject to numerous recuts prior to their eventual abandonment in the 12th century, following which a possible corn dryer was constructed over the top of one of the silted ditches. Activity on the site appears to have ceased in the later 13th or 14th centuries. The archive for the site will be deposited with the Northamptonshire Archaeological Resource Centre with Accession Number ENN 108889.