TEST PITS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST PITS IN BINGHAM
List of Test Pits
CB21
2, CHERRY STREET
SUMMARY
- The current topsoil, which lies on a surface at 57 cm appears to be divided into two parts. The upper 30-40 cm was re-deposited on this site during a building phase in the 1920s. Below this it was probably deposited here from elsewhere but close by during the final stages of the late Victorian housing development that produced the Victorian villas along Church Street.
- Records show that a house existed near this site on Cherry Street in the period between 1776 and 1883, when most of the land to the south was orchard. Debris from its demolition, including window glass, is abundant between 40 and 70 cm depth, but is particularly concentrated at the base of the topsoil and it is assumed that this house was demolished in order to make way for the Victorian villas.
- It is also postulated that there was a late 19th C ground surface coincident with the base of the topsoil at 57 cm depth.
- There is evidence of a late 17th C ground surface at about 70 cm depth. It has been turned during cultivation.
- Pottery from the Roman, early to middle Anglo-Saxon, late Saxon and early (12th C) medieval periods was found in this pit.
- Most of the older pottery sherds occur below the 70-cm surface. However, some old finds were recovered from above it and with the mixing of finds of different ages indicates that agricultural activity took place here, probably in the medieval period .
- The date range of the pottery gives evidence of activity from the Roman period to the Black Death and then there is a break until the15th C. The nature of the finds suggests that there may have been households nearby during this period up to the Black Death (1348-49).
- Cherry Street lies along the continuation of the Iron Age road that led from The Banks, via Jebb’s Lane to the church and beyond probably to the Iron Age and Roman settlements on Parson’s Hill. This was the main axis of development in Bingham village during this period.
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