Monument record DAR 048 - Medieval field systems, Land Adjoining 8 The Street (PCA) EVL

August 2019: Evaluation identified a series of medieval ditches dividing the site into regularplots, parallel to the main road. A series of possible furrows was identified in Trench 7. An undated pond was located in Trench 6. A post-medieval boundary ditch was discovered in Trench 10. The evaluation revealed what is most likely a field system, possibly associated with a medieval enclosure excavated previously to the east of the site. It could also be part of the agricultural landscape around potential medieval settlement to the immediate south and at Darsham itself. A large quantity of medieval pottery from ditches in Trenches 2, 4, and 8 implies the presence of medieval settlement activity in very close proximity. Hemp seed recovered from a pond in Trench 6 suggests that this may on occasion have been used as a retting pond (S1).

November 2019: Subsequent excavation work identified a continutation of features found in the evaluation. Two shallow postholes were alos identified. No evidence for buildings or other settlement related features were found. The site is comparable to similar excavations in the immediate vicinity at Land West of Mill House to the east and at Fox Lane to the south-east. Here medieval enclosures and boundaries point to the existence of a medieval enclosed landscape, largely of agricultural character, that expanded outwards along existing roads from the core of the medieval village of Darsham. Evidence on all three sites also suggest that they were located close to a potential green-side settlement, as there is historical evidence for a green called ‘China Green’, marked close to the site on Hodskinson’s 1783 map of Suffolk. (S2).

An evaluation and subsequent excavation at The Street, Darsham, revealed a series of medieval ditches dividing the site into regular plots, parallel to the main road. Several possible furrows and an undated pond were also identified. One ditch contained a large assemblage of pottery (219 sherds) dating mainly to the 13th–14th century; this was most likely a dump of domestic refuse from occupation nearby. Smaller pottery assemblages of the same date were retrieved from other ditches. Animal bone and a medieval iron horse harness buckle were also found in the ditches. Waterlogged environmental evidence from the pond, including hemp (Cannabis sativa) seeds, suggests that it may have been used as a retting pit. Previous excavations to the east of the site, on land west of Mill House, recorded a 12th–14th century medieval enclosure and related features, including refuse pits, a possible well and a quarry pit. A series of rectilinear ditched enclosures with an internal posthole structure, interpreted as a livestock pen, as well as refuse pits, have been recorded at Fox Lane, to the south-west of The Street. All three sites provide evidence of a medieval agricultural landscape of ditched enclosures and trackways, likely to have been part of a green-side settlement adjacent to ‘China Green’, a green depicted immediately to the north-west of the site on Hodskinson’s 1783 map of Suffolk (S3).