SNN72375 - Land off Station Road/North End, Higham Ferrers, Northants: Archaeological evaluation report

In December 1995 an evaluation was carried out on land owned by Charles Wells Ltd, situated in the south-east corner of the field already investigated as part of the archaeological project jointly funded by the Duchy of Lancaster and English Heritage to the east of Kings Meadow Lane, Higham Ferrers. The evaluation was carried out on area already stripped as part of the previous excavation and included the stripping of three evaluation trenches and selective excavation of late features in order to gain some understanding of the extent and character of the deposits within this stripped area. A probable medieval building, possibly a squatter dwelling on part of the common waste, was investigated along with associated drains, a stone-lined pit and on oven. From the scarcity of evidence near the A6 to the east of the site, there do not appear to any other medieval or post-medieval houses fronting the road. The line of the original Kings Manor Lane was discovered to the south of the site. The medieval features were cut into a series of deposits comprising pits, ditches, a possible 'sunken-featured building' and amorphous layers, which from the amount of St Neots Ware within these features, appear to date from the late Saxon/early medieval period. The earliest feature on the site is the Anglo-Saxon enclosure ditch, the line of which appears to have been used as an open field boundary during the medieval period until the fields were enclosed in 1839.