Site Event/Activity record ESF20865 - Evaluation, Land South of railway line, Westerfield Road, Ipswich

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Location

Location Land South of railway line, Westerfield Road
Grid reference Centred TM 1651 4671 (876m by 992m)
Map sheet TM14NE
Civil Parish IPSWICH, IPSWICH, SUFFOLK

Technique(s)

Organisation

Colchester Archaeological Trust

Date

Not recorded.

Map

Description

395 trenches, individually unmapped in event layer, georeferenced .jpg available. The results of a 5% archaeological evaluation on a 43.4-hectare site on land south of the railway line and west of Westerfield Road, Ipswich, Suffolk (NGR TM 166 468) can be summarised as follows: Loose Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age flints may indicate some activity here in those periods. Two groups of parallel Middle Iron Age ditches (spaced 4-5m apart) formed arable field patterns in two areas. Two groups of Iron Age pottery and two curvilinear gullies (buildings?) indicate contemporary settlements. Weaving is indicated by loom-weight fragments. Roman sherds in field ditches indicate a continuity of a small part of the Iron Age field system into the early Roman period. Roman pottery and ditches may mark indicate a small settlement. Fragments of roof tile and a tessera show that there was a high-status Roman building somewhere in the vicinity (beyond this site). There was no evidence of Anglo-Saxon period activity. Two areas of medieval ditches in broadly in the same locations as the Iron Age ditches show medieval arable here. Associated settlements (low-status rural?) are indicated by pits and ditches. The principal post-medieval and modern remains were a small enclosure with a small brick building, and field ditches (some shown on the OS as late as 1904, but since removed). Other remains consisted of 500m of WWII anti-tank trap and a gun pit, a waste pit associated with the former and adjacent 19th-century brickworks.

Sources/Archives (1)

  • --- Unpublished document: Holloway B & Brooks H. 2011. Archaeological Evaluation Report, Land South of railway line, Westerfield Road, Ipswich.

Related Monuments/Buildings (9)

  • Grove Brickworks (Site of), Ipswich. (Monument)
  • Land South of railway line, Westerfield Road, Ipswich. (Monument)
  • Medieval Ditches (Ipswich UAD child record)
  • Post Medieval Ditches (Ipswich UAD child record)
  • Prehistoric Ditches (Ipswich UAD child record)
  • Ring Ditch 066 (Ipswich UAD child record)
  • Ring Ditch 100 (Ipswich UAD child record)
  • Roman Ditches (Ipswich UAD child record)
  • Undated Ditches (Ipswich UAD child record)

Record last edited

May 2 2023 1:32PM

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