SNN115127 - Excavations at Wakerley Quarry, Area A, Northamptonshire

Between December 2020 and April 2021, Phoenix Consulting Archaeology Ltd carried out a programme of archaeological mitigation works across a part of a recently permitted quarry at Wakerley, Northamptonshire (centred on NGR SP 942 976). The works (archaeological investigation and recording in Area A), were conducted on behalf of Mick George Ltd in accordance with a condition of planning permission. The results of a previous desk-based assessment, field walking, geophysical survey and trial-trench evaluation had shown Area A (hereafter termed ‘the Site’) to have archaeological potential for Saxon metalworking. The Site covered an area of c. 5.4 ha. The works primarily encountered evidence of Saxon period metalworking including a significant number of ore roasting pits and smelting furnaces, albeit generally poorly preserved, as well as contemporary ditched boundaries and additional discrete features. In addition, a few discrete pits of Early Roman date were encountered, suggesting that a Roman activity area perhaps lay somewhere beyond the northern edge of excavation. With the exception of plough furrows, indicating former ridge and furrow cultivation, no evidence of activity post-dating the Anglo-Saxon period was encountered. The Saxon roasting pits and furnaces were seen to be distributed between three distinct areas or zones of activity. A paucity of datable, securely stratified material from the Site meant that phasing of this archaeology was almost wholly reliant on the scientific dating of key features, numbering one radiocarbon date from each of the three industrial zones. The current findings are located c. 1.5km SW of a previously excavated area containing evidence of Early to Middle Saxon iron manufacture and enclosures (Mustchin & Richmond 2018). At this site, pit clusters, feature alignments, and inhumation burials were identified, one of which returned a calibrated date range of 642–710 calAD (89.9%) at 95.4% probability. The current and previous evidence for Saxon period iron manufacture at Wakerley Quarry compliments that from the wider region, which is known to have been an important industrial centre for mining, quarrying and the manufacture of iron from at least the Early Roman period – possibly from the pre-Roman Iron Age. Extensive evidence of Iron Age and later settlement, agriculture and industry has previously been found in the surrounding landscape, while numerous slag heaps and associated features found throughout the Rockingham Forest have consistently been radiocarbon dated to the Middle Saxon period.