Ipswich UAD child record record IPS 1079 - Building 1561

An east-west aligned posthole building 9.5m x 5.5m in the southern half of the enclosure. There appear to be opposing entrances roughly halfway along the long walls. These are visible as slightly larger gaps in the lines ofpostholes, between postholes 1566 and 1597 on the north wall and 1570 and 1571 on the south, but were not obviously offset from the wall line as in building 0695. There were two slots, 1563 and 1615, 1.5m and 13m long at the west end of the long walls immediately beyond the entrance postholes and the rest of the construction was symetrically placed postholes. An exception to this can be seen at the east end of the south wall where there were wo fairly closely set postholes, 1573 and 1574, instead of the one on the north side, and in the east wall line of the building where there was a posthole along the ridge line. The different posthole positioning in the south wall may indicate the presence of a structural detail, perhaps a window. The ridge line posthole appears to have been re-dug several times and the presence of fired clay and charcoal in the fills of the later cuts 1586 and 1698 suggests that this was done after the building had been in use for some time. There was another posthole, 1600, along the ridge line just inside the west wall. The north-east corner postholes also appear to have been replaced as there were three postholes in this position, 1622 and 1624 which lay at the wall ends, reflecting the other corners and 1623 a large posthole actually on the corner. The postholes east of the entrance in the north wall, 1597/1599 and 1568 also look to have been subject to repair or replacement as the postholes were either double, 1597/1599 or a distorted shape, 1568. Additional postholes inside the building may demonstrate the presence of internal features or may be incidental. In particular 1603, 1602 and 1625 at the west end may show an internal partition aligned with the west side of the entrance. Three postholes, 1589, 1592 and 1593 lay just outside the west wall and another, 1620 just outside the north wall at the west end. Posthole 1598 lay just outside the east side of the north wall entrance, 1660, roughly central to the east wall and 1575 between closely set postholes 1573 and 1574 on the south wall. All of these were located within 0.9m of the wall line and were often close to apparently primary structural zones of the building, e.g. entrance, ridge line, corners, possible window and they may indicate the use of raking timbers to add support to the structure. There were other postholes within the building and outside but no structural interpretation can be put on them. There were no surviving surface features; hearths, floors etc. but the probable original existence of a hearth within the vicinity of the building is evidenced by the presence of fired clay etc. in the re-excavated postholes 1585, 1586 and 1698. The earliest of these postholes appears to have been 1585 which was cut by 1586. The relationship between 1586 and 1698 was not visible but 1698 contained more debris than 1586 although the fills were otherwise similar. There were few datable finds from the posthole fills, but 1584 on the east wall line contained 2 sherds of Roman pottery, 1576, one of the south-east corner postholes contained a large sherd of Ipswich ware and 1623, the re-dug north-east corner posthole contained a tiny fragment of Thetford ware.(S1).