Monument record WTL 013 - Medieval rural Settlement on Land NW of Haverhill

2018: Excavation revealed an extensive but undated field system, likely to be later prehistoric in date as it was on a different alignment to later securely dated features. The most significant discoveries related to a series of ditched fields and enclosures laid out on either side of a trackway, but predominantly on its N side. The track led W from the Haverhill road towards a medieval site known as Alderton Chapel, later occupied by Chapel Farm. The earliest boundaries and a smaller track appear to have been established in the late 11th to 12th centuries AD but were subsequently reworked on several occasions. Although predominantly agricultural in character, there was clear evidence of domestic activity within some of the enclosures, including structural remains and rubbish pits, along with more ‘industrial’ pits/tanks, quarries and possible work surfaces. The densest activity was concentrated in the W extents of the excavated areas, closer to the track and the presumed site of the chapel. Activity appeared to decline by the 14th century and the land was no longer inhabited by the late medieval to early post-medieval period; a fate presumably linked to that of the adjacent chapel.
Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2018. (S1)

2018: Together, these excavations form one of the largest investigations of a rural medieval settlement to have been carried out in this part of the county, close to the border with Essex. Comprising a series of enclosures and tofts/crofts laid out either side of a minor road (Alderton Street), the settlement seems to have flourished during the late 12th–13th centuries. Documentary research has provided a name for this long-lost hamlet (‘Alwarton’, later Alderton) and shown that it may have preceded the establishment of the documented Alderton chapel by many decades, if not centuries. Despite lying within the parish of Little Wratting, the origins and fate of Alwarton were inextricably linked with ecclesiastic institutions in the adjacent market town of Haverhill, while the large pottery assemblage shows clear affiliations with production centres in nearby Essex. This agricultural hamlet, with a mixed economic basis and a possible focus on sheep, was largely abandoned during the 14th century when much of the land reverted to fields, although the chapel and any associated buildings endured. Following the Reformation, the lord of the manor of Little Wratting purchased the lands in and around the site and his new estate became known as Chapel Farm. Alderton chapel was presumably demolished at some point in the 19th century: its precise location is not known, although some of its fabric is possibly incorporated into Chapel Cottage to the south-west of the current site (S2).