Monument record WHR 025 - Valley Farm (BA)

Ring ditch, circa 20m diameter (S1).
August/September 1999: Ring ditch partially excavated and shown to enclose two inhumations graves with body and coffin (?) stains. Associations of beaker (1 complete?) and worked flints. Ring ditch cut by later Med & PMed trackway and field boundary ditches. Details in (S2).

Prior to the construction of a new grain-storage facility, the conditions of the planning consent required the owner of the site to provide for a programme of excavation to facilitate the recording of archaeological deposits known from aerial photographs to be present. The cropmarks visible on the photographs defined a circular ring-like feature crossed by two gently curving linear features.
The earliest activity identified on the site was found to be the ring-like feature which was a continuous c.2m wide ditch, c.1m deep, with a diameter of c.19m. Two large graves were recorded in the area enclosed by the ditch, one orientated N.W. to S.E., the other approximately east to west. While no skeletal remains had survived in the acidic sandy soils, the outline of the bodies was defined by stains on the bottom of the grave. Other stains suggested that the burials had been originally confined by wood coffins or wood-lined chambers. The subsequent collapse of the chamber or coffin had left clear indications in the composition of the grave fill. Dating for the burials was provided by a whole Early Bronze Age Beaker included as grave goods in one of the graves.
The linear features were found to be ditches of medieval and post-medieval date and appeared to represent a droveway with smaller, previously unknown, ditches defining contemporary field boundaries in the area adjacent to the droveway itself. The truncated nature of the medieval phase of the droveway ditch, where it crossed the centre of the ring-ditch, suggests that at this time a shallow mound had been present over the graves.
Evidence for Roman activity was also recovered, but was limited to residual pottery in the later features. This included an almost complete Roman vessel in one of the droveway ditches, suggesting that although no contemporary features were identified in the excavated area, there had been significant Roman presence in the vicinity of the site. Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 1999 (S3).

Trial trenching revealed a single undated ditch within the initial development area with a further small pit within a monitored area. No datable artefacts where recovered, however it did contain a charcoal rich fill reminiscent of prehistoric features on other sties (S4).