Site Event/Activity record ESF22768 - Watching Brief - The Mutton, Ipswich Road, Offton

One visit was made when the groundwork for the retaining wall was well underway. The house is situated towards the bottom of a small valley and faces soutwest where it fronts onto the Ipswich Road. The garden to the rear of the property rises sharply to the northeast of the with a steep slope that rises 4/5m over a distance of c25m. While ground conditions were dry visibillity was good and the exposed section along the slope revealed some 300/400mm of sandy topsoil over 1/1.5m of sandy subsoil hillwash lying on on sand/gravel natural drit geology. Within the hillwash layer Pmed brick/tile fragments and 18C+ sherds could be seen close to its base and no layer differentiation could be observed from top to bottom. No features could be seen below the hillwash layer. As noted above Pmed CBM fragments and 18C+ sherds and claypipe fragments were visible in the spoil and section. In addition 2 sherds (54g) of earlier date were found in the spoil, these are: Sue Anderson- 'one is a slightly abraded greyware body sherd which could be Thetford type ware of late Saxon/Early Medieval date, and the other is an unglazed redware strap handle, probably of late Medieval and Transitional ware type (15/16C)' -(finds with SCC). Finally the spoil also contained a few heavily burnt flints of unknown date. Conclusion: the late/post medieval finds are consistent with the house that is of at least 17C date and which could have had an earlier medieval predecessor. However too little undisturbed natural ground was seen to draw any conclusions about the presence, or absence , of prehistoric activity as indicated by finds from the filed above to the east of the site.