Site Event/Activity record ESF22929 - Watching Brief - Crown Cottage, Bedfield

Watching Brief - a single visit was made to the plot of land adjacent to Crown Cottage, Church Road, Bedfield, to examine some 80% of the footing trenches for a single house development in February 2004. The footing trenches were open to a depth of c1.8m and were cut into heavy boulder clay natural drift geology. The only feature noted in the trenches was a c2.5m wide and 1.5m deep ditch running east-west across the site. No find were recovered from the ditch, which had a mid-brown clay fill. Visibility along footing trenches was good. The only other feature of archaeological interest on the site was noted at the rear of the development area were the trenches cut through the shallow brick foundations of the cottages shown on early OS maps. The only finds in this area were fragments of brick and tile which all appeared to be 18th/19th century in date. The archaeological potential of this site was based on its close proximity to that part of Bedfield long green, which runs along the western end of Church Road. In this context it is interesting to note that the wide ditch seen in the footing trenches lines lines up with a point immediately in front of the timber framed Crown Inn to the west and with an existing ditch in fron tof Ivy House Farm to the east. Therefore it appears likely that the ditch recorded in the site visit is an infilled green edge boundary marker. However no evidence was recorded for medieval activity on the site as the cottages shown on early OS maps on the land plot seem to have been later Post medieval in date (S1).