EDO4240 - Trumpet Major I, Excavation Trench S.

To the west of The Trumpet Major, Alington Avenue, Wessex Archaeology cut three trenches within an overgrown coppice prior to development as two houses. The three trenches, machine stripped to chalk bedrock, showed that settlement was intense on this side of Alington Avenues (the opposite side in relation to the Alington Avenue and Fordington Farm excavations). The western Trench revealed a Romano-British ditch. The NE trench contained late Iron Age droveway ditches and a crouched burial. The southern trench contained a series of LIA/early RB settlement ditches and 2 crouched burials. Trench S (southern trench) located a series of settlement ditches of late Iron Age and Romano-British date. One of these was very large and aligned NW-SE. The ditch may belong to a large enclosure or land division to the north, and may be asociated with a similar ditch found in a railway cutting in 1884 (RCHM, 1970, 575). The ditch was 7m across, at least 2m deep with shallow V-profile and with a homogeneous silty fill. The upper fill contained Roman tile and the rim of an amphora. A second shallower ditch with a chalky fill to the located to the east contained a 1st century BC/AD BBW pot. There was also a short section of 'droveway-type' ditch at the eastern end of the trench. There were two crouched burials; one was coffined, with head pointing east of north; the other was oriented with head south of east and contained animal bones in the grave.