Test Pit 10:         Church Street

3rd August 2013

By Martin Cuthbert

Test Pit 10 was located just west of Church Street, approximately 30 metres south of the church.

The oldest part of the church is 10th century, but it may have older origins. The Saxon and Norman village would of originated close to the church so the possibility of finding Saxon and Medieval finds was quite high. An excavation on the site in the 1990’s identified that the western part of the site formed part of the church cemetery, 77 burials were revealed. A SW-NE ditch was identified at the centre of the site forming the 11th century church boundary. We placed the test pit just to the east of the boundary ditch.

A modern made ground containing brick and builders rubble overlay a buried topsoil containing post-medieval pottery, clay pipe stems, tiles, glass and a large collection of medieval pottery sherds. Below the topsoil was the layer of subsoil, where we stopped excavation. The assemblage of over 70 sherds of medieval pottery was recovered from the modern made ground (038) and original topsoil deposit (041).  Of these, fifty-nine were of greyware, dating to 1050-1350.  There was also a single sherd of early-mid Saxon organic tempered ware.  The assemblage suggests that there has been continuous habitation within the vicinity of TP10 from the Saxon period, perhaps as early as AD450 but more likely later, with a peak of activity between 1100 and 1350.

A huge thank you to all our volunteers, Pauline from LBDAHS, Paul Blinkhorn our pottery specialist and of course John for allowing us to dig a hole in his garden.