Monument record DAR 021 - Land between Station Garage and Railway Cottage

An area of 0.6 hectares was evaluated by trial trenching to provide a 5% sample of the site. At the south-western end of the site a series of medieval ditches were revealed, mostly running on a north-east to south-west alignment. Pottery recovered from these features was mainly of late 12th to 14th century AD date. Prehistoric finds in the form of a sherd of pottery of Late Bronze to Early/Middle Iron Age date and heat-altered flint were recovered as residual finds in the medieval features (S1).

An open-area excavation of c.0.3ha revealed archaeological remains of Roman and medieval date. A series of shallow ditches or trenches, running north-east to south-west, were closely spaced at c.5m apart. These have provisionally been dated to the Roman period and are thought to be possible raised beds (or strip fields) for cultivation. Superimposed across these shallow trenches were a number of ditches representing rectilinear enclosures (only partly revealed in the excavation area). These ditches were of medieval date and probably relate to road frontage settlement to the north-west (towards the present day A12). Within the corner of one of these enclosure ditches was a long L-shaped beam slot, measuring 15m by 7m which may represent part of an open-sided barn or other ancillary structure (S2).