Site Event/Activity record ESF22597 - Monitoring - Highbank, Church Lane, Claydon

All the footings for an extension on the NW corner of the existing house were examined when fully excavated. The footings were c1.20m deep and the relevent sections revealed banded layers of sandy loam and clay overburden with occasional small brick/tile fragments. The base of the footings was still within the same overburden deposit. Examination of the spoil from the footings revealed only 19th C+ brick, tile and other building debris in small quantities. The depth of overburden is high for a rural site (the adjacent lane is at a much lower level being some 1.5/1.8m below the house level) and it is possible that spoil from the adjacent 19E20 chalk pit to the SW of the property has been deposited on adjacent areas leading to such depths of deposit over the naturally occuring ground level. Whether any archaeological deposits exist below the overburden layer is impossible to tell as the footings did not go deep enough to fully understand this more recent deposit.