TEST PITS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST PITS IN BINGHAM
List of Test Pits
LA12
REGENCY HOUSE, LONG ACRE
SUMMARY
- Careful measurements show that there have been several changes to the northern boundary of the plot since 1841.
- In 1586 the site of the pit was on the property rented by Elizabeth Allen, a cottager who lived here and had no other rented holdings in the parish.
- In 1776 the pit site was within the garden around a cottage on Cherry Street rented by Samuel Baxter and was close to the house.
- In 1841 the Cherry Street house was still there, but it was now set in an orchard. It was demolished in 1920 when Nos 6 and 8 Cherry Street were built and the land behind Regency House was extended northwards to include the area now occupied by the pit LA12.
- The test pit has a layer of topsoil 18 cm thick overlying a demolition layer comprising many brick pieces. Several were measured as 2.5 inches thick. This is a common thickness for Georgian brick and may have come from the demolition of the cottage rented by Samuel Baxter in 1776 and which was demolished to make way for the modern houses in Cherry Street.
- There is a layer of topsoil beneath the demolition layer and that gradually passes down into subsoil which bottoms at 60 cm.
- The edge of a trench was located below the 60 cm horizon with the subsoil overlying it. This is an important boundary. All the modern and post-medieval pottery is above it. Some medieval sherds were also found above this level, but all the pottery is mixed at this level as though the ground had been turned during cultivation.
- The trench infill contains only one pottery sherd, a piece of Nottingham stoneware made in the first half of the 18th C.
- Medieval pottery is found between 40 and 100 cm depth with a maximum between 70 and 80 cm. It covers the date range mid 13th to mid 15th C. This spans the mid 14th C devastation caused by the Black Death (1348-49). Midland Purple Ware (1400-1550) is also present. In this respect the pottery assemblage is no different from that in pit LA09 some 20 metres to the north west.
- Unlike LA09, which has the richest collection of Roman pottery in all the pits in Bingham there was only one Roman pot sherd in this pit and one possible Iron Age.
- There were no Anglo-Saxon, Late Saxon, Saxo-Norman or early medieval sherds, such as Nottingham Splashed Ware in this pit.
- Two post holes were encountered with tops at c 75 cm depth. No pottery was found in either of them, but this depth is the maximum for medieval pottery and it is assumed that the post holes may date from the medieval period. There is also a suggestion of a surface at this level visible on the photographs of the pit wall.
Click here for a detailed account of the pit.