SNN116711 - Archaeological geophysical survey alongside the River Nene, Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire, November 2024

MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) was commissioned by the Environment Agency to undertake a magnetometer survey of c23ha of land on the floodplain of the River Nene, east of Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire. The survey detected a short pit alignment, of presumed prehistoric date, in the north of the survey area. Two opposing semi-circular anomalies lying close alongside this perhaps represented a prehistoric ring ditch, though the evidence was inconclusive. Various linear ditches were detected elsewhere. Whilst these none of these could be reliably dated, two of them lay on widely-spaced parallel alignments and were traceable as cropmarks for 500m beyond the survey area, raising slight suspicions of a Neolithic cursus. Geological responses, mostly relating to previous channels of the River Nene, were also widely present in the survey data.