EDO6486 - Land at East Chickerell; evaluation 2016

An archaeological evaluation comprising the machine excavation of forty trenches, each of approximately 50m x 2m, approximately 2% of the development area. The trenches were positioned to target anomalies and apparently ‘blank’ areas seen in geophysical survey, which suggested that the central part of the southern half of the site was one of the main areas of archaeological potential. Several ditches and deposits containing material of Romano-British date were identified in this area, with the greatest density of archaeological features in Trenches 31 and 35. Trenches 17 and 27, slightly further north, also contained features which were tentatively dated to the Romano-British. Most of the ditches recorded were interpreted as components of field systems or enclosures, while the quality and character of material recovered from some of the ditches and spreads was thought to indicate settlement in the immediate area and also of Romano-British date. Evidence for activity at other periods was limited, comprising a small assemblage of residual pottery and worked flint and a tree-throw hole of possible Bronze Age date, and traces of a lime kiln depicted on late 19th-century maps and detected by the geophysical survey.