Ipswich UAD child record record IPS 1442 - Ditch 3160

A ditch (3160) ran north to south at the east end of the site. It was excavated in ten sections (0257, 0260, 0261, 0297, 0370, 2708, 2715, 2787, 2803, 2927). Layers of the bank, on the inside (west of the ditch), survived only in the north section. The entire late Saxon town bank and ditch was buried under later town banks. The ditch was a maximum of 2.6m wide and reduced from 1.7m deep, at the south end, to less than a metre at the north end.
There is also evidence for the width of the late Saxon town bank. The north section of the site, where bank layers survive, shows that it exceeded 4.4m wide. The later, MLS phase 3 smithing hearths (0284 and 0342) and the MLS phase 4 cemetery do not extend east of a line 7-8m west of the town ditch implying that the bank was there as an obstacle. The bank was an earthwork about 70cm high, with four layers recorded in section (0314, 0315, 0316, 0317) overlying the ELS building 1691 (a and b).
The ditch fill of gravelly-loam contained an MLS pottery assemblage throughout indicating that it had been filled by the end of the MLS period (i.e. by c.1000). There was only one coin (0045/4801N), an obol of Charles the Bald, from the ditch fill (2803), which provdes a tpq of c.910, (S1).