Monument record FEX 312 - Predominantly Bronze Age agricultural and settlement activity at Land South of High Street, Walton Green, Felixstowe

A series of linear, curvilinear and rectilinear features were detected across the entire survey area denoting possible ditches and a possible enclosure that may relate to Bronze Age activity on this site. A sub-circular shaped feature was detected mid-way along the eastern side of the survey area possibly denoting the remains of a ring ditch. At its centre is an individual positive feature possibly representing a pit (S1).

2017: Archaeological excavation of five areas, totalling c.1.5ha, established the presence of multi-phase archaeological remains, comprising ditches, gullies, pits and postholes. The recovery of a small amount of residual worked flint of broadly Mesolithic to Bronze Age date provides evidence of a limited and most likely transitory earlier prehistoric presence in the landscape at this time. An unstratified polished axe head of Neolithic date may have been a curated object during a later period. The remains of a structured deposit of two Beaker vessels, in a non-funerary context, constituted the only Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age activity identified within the site.
Middle Bronze Age occupation of the site comprised two main phases of activity represented by two successive phases of coaxial field systems. Environmental sampling demonstrates a mixed arable economy, including wheat, barley and legumes, and the exploitation of wild food sources. The remains of trackways and pits, together with a small animal bone assemblage, were indicative of contemporary livestock management. A number of scattered pits and a small drip gully interpreted as a probable roundhouse (internal diameter 3.15-3.70m) were concentrated largely in the north of the site and broadly dated to the Middle Bronze Age. The remains of a probable posthole enclosure and numerous pits, recorded largely in
the south of the site, contained significant quantities of discarded pottery, fired clay and pyramidal loom weights dating from the Late Bronze Age to the Earliest Iron Age.
A hiatus of activity appears to have taken place after the Early Iron Age, up until the post-medieval period. Post-medieval and modern features were present across the site. Post-medieval ditches comprised the remains of field boundaries. Several recorded ditches corresponded with boundaries depicted on the 1881 OS map of Felixstowe. The ditches demonstrate the continued agricultural use of land. A single First World War defensive or training trench was present in the northwest of the site. Defensive works of this type are noted all along the Suffolk coastline and particularly in strategic areas, such as the River Orwell. (S2)

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2017 (S3).