Monument record HWT 072 - Late prehistoric, Roman and post medieval activity at Land south of Chediston Street, Halesworth

2021: Cotswold Archaeology carried out an archaeological evaluation with a total of sixty-six trenches excavated. Archaeological deposits ranging in date from the Early Neolithic through to the post medieval periods were identified in thirty-four of the trenches. Characteristically dispersed prehistoric activity was shown across the site with both stratified Early Neolithic to Bronze Age pottery recovered from discrete features and worked flint present residually in later features. An anomaly identified by an earlier geophysical survey and targeted by trenches was revealed to be a Roman ditch which enclosed the higher ground in the south-eastern corner of the site. Further anomalies were shown to coincide with pits containing Roman pottery and Ceramic Building Material. The amount of Roman CBM recovered was sufficient to suggest the possibility of a building within the vicinity of this part of the site. The location of post-medieval field boundary ditches, shown on historic mapping was confirmed while likely contemporary extraction pits were identified at the southern edge of the site, in the natural clay deposits on the higher ground. (S1)

Excavation identified Early Neolithic pits and flint-working waste towards the foot of the slope on which the site is located, close to a tributary of the river Blyth that flows along the valley bottom. Isolated Bronze and Iron Age pits suggest sporadic activity during later prehistory.
There was evidence for more sustained settlement during the Roman period. Around the 2nd century the hillside was divided up into ditched fields and enclosures for growing crops and pasturing livestock (Fig. 12). This was probably part of a wider field system associated with a farm or estate centre located at the top of the hill. Few finds were recovered from this initial period of Roman activity, perhaps suggesting that the farm was located some distance away from the fields. An urned cremation burial was found dug into one of the ditches.
The field ditches gradually silted up and were at some point replaced by a single large rectangular enclosure at the top of the hill. Inside the enclosure was a masonry bathhouse (Fig. 13) consisting of two small rooms with flint cobble foundations, one with pilae stacks indicating the presence of an underfloor hypocaust system. It appears that this was a heated caldarium and the other room a cold room or frigidarium. Just outside the bathhouse was a small rectangular tank, built of flint cobbles and lined on the inside with opus signinum concrete; a narrow channel took water away from this tank. A well, more than 5m deep, was located close to the bathhouse. A large rectangular pit, lined with clay, was also found nearby and was presumably used to hold water. Discerning the precise function of these various water management features and their relationships with the bathhouse will form part of post-excavation analysis. Roman bathhouses are rare in Suffolk, thus suggesting inhabitants of some wealth and status. A well-preserved pottery kiln shows that the inhabitants of this farm or estate centre made some of their own pots. Wasters from the final, failed, firing were still present.
In the c.4th century, the bathhouse and kiln appear to have gone out of use and the bathhouse was demolished, with brick, roof tile and other building materials being used to backfill many of the features on the site, including the ditches, pits, and the bathhouse itself. Most of the finds recovered from the site come from this period of demolition and backfilling. Further evidence for the wealth of the occupants can be seen in an array of fairly rich metalwork and other small items, including coins, glass beads, brooches, a personal grooming kit, a silver spoon and a large number of copper-alloy hair pins. There was a significant concentration of such objects in the large clay-lined water tank, possibly indicating deliberate, perhaps ritual, deposition.
One wall of the bathhouse appears to have been reused as the short end of a rectangular, post-built barn, possibly constructed to store grain and other cereals in the late Roman period. After this structure went out of use, there was little archaeologically visible activity on the site until the modern period.
Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2022 (S2)