TEST PITS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST PITS IN BINGHAM
List of Test Pits
CB20
2, EAST STREET
SUMMARY
- The house here is the closest building to the church on the south. There has been a cottage on the site of the present house since at least 1586, but it was on a different land holding from the site where the pit is located until after the date of the tithe map of 1841. The early history of the site therefore does not relate to the house, now No 2 East Street.
- The sequence in the pit has topsoil on subsoil, which overlies a deposit thought to be a flood deposit.
- Flooding in this area has been recorded in the 19th and 20th C and is likely to have been a feature of this ground before that. A sherd of Roman Grey Ware found in the top of the deposit in the field was subsequently lost, but the presence of Late Saxon Torksey Ware immediately above the flood deposit suggests that the best date for it is after 410 and before 1050 when Torksey Ware ceased being made.
- The top 30 cm in the pit are likely to have been re-deposited as a result of landscaping in the 20th C.
- Between 30cm and the top of the flood deposit, which is at 68cm depth there is a natural sequence of subsoil overlain by topsoil, but the age distribution of the finds in this sequence suggests that it has been dug and turned during agriculture of horticulture.
- The date range of the pottery found above the flood deposit is near complete from Late Saxon to Modern and there is continuity through the period of the Black Death.
- Pottery that would have been in use at the time the church was being built is present, but is insufficient to suggest that there was a habitation near here at that time.
- Post-medieval pottery, which ranges in date from mid 15th to mid 18th C is the most abundant in the pit. Taking this in addition to the 18th C stoneware and Modern pottery and early clay pipes suggests that there was a habitation nearby from the mid 15th C. The conjectural map for 1586 and the 1776 map show that the pit was sited at the foot of a plot of land belonging to a cottage on Long Acre. This site would be the preferred location for dumping domestic rubbish generated in this house.
Click here for a detailed account of the pit.