Monument record BRF 193 - Outline Record- Roman and Medieval Pottery Test Pitting, Bramford, 2012

Bramford today is a small nucleated village on the W bank of the River Gipping just over 1km west of Ipswich and about 0.5km west of the A14. The village today is arranged either side of the A1067, named The Street, as it comes into the village from the N and Ship Lane after it turns E to cross the river. Most of the older housing in Bramford today lies along Ship Lane, which runs immediately N of the church. Although the settlement today forms a single block, this is due largely to recent development. Most notably, with the exception of properties facing directly onto The Street, the area between The Street and the river is of almost entirely recent date. In the 19th century the 1st-edition Ordnance Survey map shows settlement to be limited to a cluster of houses at the E end of Ship Lane (N of the church, close to the river crossing) which extended for 70m or so to the N along Mill Lane. There was little housing along Ship Lane to the W of this cluster and none on its S side, although most of the land on its N side was occupied by small paddocks mostly planted with trees. The Street (then called Bramford Street) was occupied by densely packed housing arranged on both sides. This terminated at the junction with Ship Lane, but c.150m to the south, three properties clustered around the junction with Vicarage Lane. The church of St Mary is recorded as a possible Domesday minster (Dymond and Martin 1999). A number of findspots in and around the village have produced medieval pottery ranging in date from Thetford Ware to the 16th century (eg SHER MSF12413; BRF 054; BRF 040; BRF 021; BRF 005).
Nine test pits were dug in 2012 (www.arch.cam.ac.uk/aca/bramford.html): five in gardens along The Street, three in the area N of the church and one at the W end of Vicarage Lane. The earliest pottery dated to the Roman period, recovered from BRA/12/05, at the S end of The Street. There was only a single sherd found, so although this was of some size (32g), it is considered more likely to indicate low-intensity use such as arable rather than settlement. Two pits produced Thetford Ware, with BRA/12/06 yielding two sherds from contexts which had not suffered recent disturbance, hinting moderately strongly at the presence of settlement nearby. BRA/12/04 produced a single very small (3g) sherd of Thetford Ware, a less strong indicator of settlement, although it is interesting to note that this came from the E end of Ship Lane, near the church. Two of the three pits in this area (BRA/12/03 and BRA/12/04) produced pottery of high medieval date, suggesting that settlement may have clustered in this area at this time. Neither pit produced very large amounts of his material, however (five sherds from BRA/12/04 and just two from BRA/12/03). Similarly small volumes of high medieval pottery were recovered from BRA/12/06, off Vicarage Lane, hinting at settlement in this area, while BRA/12/09, right at the N end of The Street, produced just a single sherd (albeit quite large at 11g) probably indicating that this area was in use as arable fields at this time.
The only pits to produce significant amounts of later medieval pottery were BRA/12/03 and BRA/12/04, indicating that habitation on these sites, both immediately N of the church, seems to have continued and even flourished as both pits produced more material of this date then for the high medieval period. Settlement along The Street, if it was indeed absent in the late medieval period, was clearly re-established later, in the post medieval period, along at least the southern half of its present extent (S1).