Monument record BNH 012 - Barnham Number 2 pit (Sax)

Artefacts had been found on site by W G Clarke in 1913-1914 and are shown on HER card BNH 14 which must be considered as early finds from BNH 012. This site contained the second gravel pit opened by Messrs Allen Newport Limited in Barnham in 1951 but the gravel ran out very quickly and the pit was closed in 1952. It consists of a gravel terrace overlooking the Little Ouse river and bounded on the W by the railway, Little Ouse river in the N, small tributary stream in the E and another to the S. On HER map TL 87 NE the S boundary is marked at a field boundary some 60 metres S of the stream but all Basil Brown's sketches show no workings or finds beyond the stream and he states the stream to be the boundary. For Basil Brown this was a salvage operation and he worked alongside the machinery extracting the gravel so there was little time for detailed excavation and this method meant that most of the finds were damaged when they showed in the pit face (S1). Basil Brown at first thought he had found an Anglo Saxon site because a pot was excavated which he originally designated as Anglo Saxon. However, within a very short space of time it was realised that the pot (two-thirds complete) was IA and B Brown never refers to Anglo Saxon artefacts on sites again. However, his original definition had been forwarded to the OS and it appears on OS card TL87NE1. Ipswich Museum record card notes sherds of decorated pottery from IA village/AS (1951-39) and there are two sherds in SAU store which could be either Iron Age or Anglo Saxon so that subject is still open to debate (S1)(S2)(S3)(S4).
Also Pal, BA, IA, Rom.