Monument record BNH 012 - Barnham Number 2 pit (BA)

Artefacts had been found on site by W G Clarke in 1913-1914 and are shown on HER card BNH 14 which must be considered as early finds from BNH 012. This site contained the second gravel pit opened by Messrs Allen Newport Limited in Barnham in 1951 but the gravel ran out very quickly and the pit was closed in 1952. It consists of a gravel terrace overlooking the Little Ouse river and bounded on the W by the railway, Little Ouse river in the N, small tributary stream in the E and another to the S. On HER map TL 87 NE the S boundary is marked at a field boundary some 60 metres S of the stream but all Basil Brown's sketches show no workings or finds beyond the stream and he states the stream to be the boundary. For Basil Brown this was a salvage operation and he worked alongside the machinery extracting the gravel so there was little time for detailed excavation and this method meant that most of the finds were damaged when they showed in the pit face (S1). Early in 1951 a sherd from a "C" beaker was found with a new fracture (broken by machine)(S2)(S3)(S4). As the site was closing down in December 1952 a second sherd of beaker pottery was found but there are no details and no sketches of this (S5).
IA hut sites, fire holes and pit, paths, and pottery including part of triangular loom weight, Rom pottery, lava quern and part of mortarium were also found.
Also Pal, IA, Rom & Sax.