Monument record MNL 598 - Land Adjoining Smoke House Inn, Skelton's Drove, Beck row, (Un)

Evaluation identified sparsely scattered features mainly ditches, a pit and a gully (S1).

A 1.4ha excavation in advance of a housing development identified widespread evidence of Late Iron Age and Roman rural settlement and agriculture. This site lies immediately to the south of site MNL 508, where a 2nd/3rd-century timber building interpreted as a malt house was found (East Anglian Archaeol. Occ. Paper 2).
Networks of ditches forming a variety of enclosure systems, field boundaries or drainage networks were identified, together with a dense scatter of large pits which were possibly used for grain storage. The presence of at least one possible timber building was indicated by a linear series of postholes. A substantial finds assemblage, dating from the late prehistoric period to the 3rd century AD has been collected.
Several local volunteers and students were able to work on the site and a day visit was made by the Hartismere High School Archaeology Club. Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2008 (S3).