Hertfordshire Archaeol 13

Excavations undertaken in advance of a new road scheme revealed multi-period archaeological remains. The principal phase comprised a Late Bronze Age open settlement (c. tenth to ninth centuries BC). Two of the three circular structures recorded lay within field systems and were adjacent to a D-shaped animal pen or corral. A large feature that may represent a broad ditch or hollow-way, sealed by a sequence of colluvial layers (the latest being Roman in date), was revealed nearby. Later features, some probably Roman, were found to the east of the principal archaeological remains while a post-medieval field boundary and quarrying was revealed to the west. Includes specialist reports on

Excavations at Buncefield Lane revealed three phases of archaeology. The earliest comprised features related to Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age (c. eighth to sixth centuries BC) settlement activity. Field ditches on the western side of the site contained early Roman pottery (first to second century AD) and are interpreted as a continuation of the rectilinear field system associated with the temple excavated at Wood Lane End some 100m to the south. Post-medieval quarry pits represented the final phase of activity recorded on the site. Specialist reports include

Domestic animal bones from first-century BC to first-century AD contexts at Foxholes Farm, near Hertford, mainly represented food debris, with a preponderance of cattle among the main species. They are compared with material from contemporary and Romano-British sites in East Hertfordshire and elsewhere.

Salvage excavation of an isolated medieval pottery kiln, revealed during road construction, recovered the lower structure of an oval oven with two opposed flues. A substantial assemblage of medieval `South Hertfordshire Greyware', dated on external evidence to c. 1200--50, formed the fill of the kiln, although it did not represent the last firing. Jugs, cooking and storage pots and bowls were the main types present. the affinities of the kiln are discussed. Includes a catalogue and

Report on work carried out by the 17th Century Research Group of the St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society on the topography of the town, including the sites of early buildings. One of these is that of the Moot Hall, which featured in the aftermath of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The article argues that the building often identified as the fourteenth-century Moot Hall is in fact of too late an architectural date to be the original building. Examination of documentary and pictorial evidence would seem to indicate that the Moot Hall in fact stood on the site of the present Town Hall nearby.

Nye Hall is conventionally thought to have been rebuild by the Earl of Warwick sometime after 1576. However an account by John Stow attributes the work to William Cavendish, before 1552. A third source, a survey, suggests that in 1556 the house was in considerable disrepair. The paper attempts to reconcile the contradictory evidence.

Five initial results (Ware Priory; Westwick Cottage and Westwick Row Farm, Leverstock Green; Place House, Ware; and Cromer Windmill) are described in a programme of dendrochronological dating on a range of significant timber-framed structures in Hertfordshire.

Brief reports by the East Herts Archaeological Society and the St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society of activities during the period 1996 to 1999.