SNN116961 - Land West of Northampton, Phase 2, Harpole Northamptonshire: Archaeological Evaluation

In May 2025, Cotswold Archaeology carried out an archaeological evaluation of land West of Northampton, Northamptonshire. The current phase of trenching followed on from an initial evaluation undertaken in 2016, while extensive archaeological excavations undertaken in 2022 and 2023 to the north revealed multiperiod remains including a pit alignment, roundhouses and enclosures of Iron Age date and a Roman limekiln.The evaluation confirmed the presence of archaeological features broadly conforming with cropmarks and geophysical anomalies identified by previous surveys of the site. Two of three ditches identified in Trench 2 correspond with cropmarks identified from aerial photographs, with a sherd of Late Iron Age – Roman pottery recovered from one. This suggests that these remains represent a continuity of the Iron Age and Roman landscape recorded to the north. Little can be said regarding the third ditch beyond noting that it was not identified as a cropmark or by the geophysical survey.Three furrows were present in Trench 1, associated with the medieval and early post-medieval cultivation of the landscape, a land use that continued through to the present