Monument record HMG 007 - Roman artefact scatter of tesserae and tile, Postholes, enclsoure ditch and Building foundations

Scatter : concentration of tesserae and tile centred at grid reference in an area circa 60m x 40m, some further material down slope. Also pottery including samian, mortaria, amphora, colour coated, black burnished (BB2). Found fieldwalking (S1).
Also found (with metal detector): coins of Marcus Aurelius (AD 171), late C3, Constantinian and Magnentius (350-351)(S1).
Test trench just N of main surface concentration of tesserae revealed two small intact areas of floor. Set in soil with very little mortar. Coarse red, light red and white tesserae (S1)(S2).
Also IA pottery sherd.
Magnetometry survey in autumn 2009 shows part of a rectilinear enclosure, possible outer parallel ditches, lines of pits/large posts, possible masonry spread area within the enclosure. See linked image file.
Excavation 1989 (S3)


With the cooperation of both the owner and the farmer, Mr R .Miles, cropmarks indicating foundations and postholes of a Roman building, confirmed by a magnetometry survey, were examined. Areas over the postholes and across the line of an enclosure ditch were stripped, revealing the footing of a back wall with a short return, plus one line of three postholes. The shallow footings contained much chalk and wall plaster throughout, with the junction angle of the footings being of dumped large flints, broken tile, imbrices and occasional box tile (one of which had unusual vertical combing), with coarse wall plaster scattered in with traces of opus signinum. I had mistakenly assumed that a badly laid brick tesserae floor previously found would be here, but this was finally re-located inside the enclosure ditch, in an area of heavily magnetised deposits on the geophysical survey. The finds associated with the small area opened, indicated that this was the rubble spread from the house preceding the aisled building and the source of the ceramic building material in the latter’s footings. The long footings ended in a clean, deliberate end and as there was no sign in our stripped area of a return wall at that end, it looks oddly as if there was an open end to the building. The platform on which the building was situated has been much eroded at its downslope side, causing those features to be either truncated or missing. We are not sure whether it was ever completed; the sectioned posthole showed a post-pipe backfilled with the same fill mix as covered the floor area, the post having been cleanly removed. The flooring layer itself had late 4th-century bowls and part of a hard-chalk, chiselled ‘brick’, presumed to be from the former buildings’ internal partition walling. The enclosure ditch section downhill was rich in finds, the base having cordoned and decorated pottery typical of the mid 1st to the early 2nd century, along with prehistoric flint- tempered pottery; finds becoming later at the top (late 2nd century at provisional dating). Some excellent fine glass, and a turned jet bead came from the top, plus part of a grey ware coarse beaker with “*(N?)IO” scratched on the base, while a blue glass bead of a type popular in the Iron Age came from a part-excavated linear feature nearby.
Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2011 (S4).