Site Event/Activity record ESF22147 - Excavation, Half Moon Public House, Lakenheath.

Phases of evaluation and excavation fieldwork were carried out at the former Half Moon pub in Lakenheath, Suffolk. The site is located towards the northern end of Lakenheath village, flanked by the High Street to the east. Prior to the groundworks the site had remained somewhat undisturbed as part of the pub car park. Small quantities of Neolithic flint were found underneath the peat that overlaid the natural. Underlying the peat was a series of small pits and possible postholes that produced no datable material. 11th/12th century pottery was recovered from the top of the peat, although the main phases of occupation appear to be later medieval and post-medieval. These phases produced pits, postholes and ditches, as well as two wells, which were all cut into the upper layers of peat. The features produced medieval and post-medieval pottery and CBM, animal bone, as well as three pieces of wood, belonging to a fence line and a more significant timber structure. The environmental samples and column sample indicated that the site was a wet fenland area (with a pollen residue indicating an Iron Age/Roman formation date). This eventually dried out in the 11th/12th century onwards and was then used for arable farming, with evidence for nearby domestic activity provided by very small charcoal fragments recorded throughout the environmental record. Both types of sampling indicated that the soil profile did not form as a continuous peat sequence, but was also made up of silty-sandy mud layers across the site.