Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 110

Within an intensively excavated landscape on the eastern fringes of the Cam Valley, sits the Bell Language School. Excavations here in 2014 revealed a long sequence of landuse,beginning in the Early Bronze Age with a series of pits associated with burnt stone and flint. In the Middle Bronze Age, ditched boundaries – forming part of an extensive set of field systems recorded across the wider landscape – were laid out, before being superseded by a series of linear post alignments and a pit alignment. Probably dating to the Late Bronze Age, the post alignments are an unusual discovery and find their closest regional parallels with a set of post alignments at Barleycroft Farm in the lower Ouse Valley. Aligned broadly parallel to, and post-dating the post alignments, were the remains of an extensive cobbled trackway surface, thought to originate in the Early Iron Age, but continuing in use until the Early Roman period, when it was incorporated into a field system including an area of cultivation beds. Emphasising the remarkable sequence of prehistoric boundary/routeway features, this article places the excavation results in the context of the heavily exploited landscapes to the south of Cambridge.

Excavations at two sites near March revealed evidence for prehistoric and Roman settlements. At March Road, Wimblington, excavation identified part of a rural farmstead and associated agricultural landscape occupied from the prehistoric through to the Roman period. Prehistoric evidence consisted of a Bronze Age post-built roundhouse and associated features, an undated ring-ditch and Iron age field boundaries, suggesting that the main settlement lay elsewhere during the Iron Age. In the Roman period activity shifted to the north-western part of the site, comprising a series of rectilinear enclosures, field systems and a trackway as well as three post-built structures, waterholes and finds-rich pits. At Jobs Lane, March, the site was on the peripheries of a large Roman settlement complex. Apart from an inhumation burial and a single ditch of Iron age date substantial activity on the site began during the 2nd century AD, with the establishment of a series of large agricultural enclosures and associated trackways. Five structures were identified. The later 2nd–3rd century saw an increase in the number of enclosures, an additional post-built structure and a shift towards an industrial emphasis demonstrated by four bread ovens. This trend continued into the later Roman period with the construction of two clay lined water tanks. In the 4th century AD a series of north-south aligned boundaries divided the site into regular ‘strip’ like fields. There were also four large waterholes, two of which had associated superstructures. Part of a building was represented by the remains of wall footings which had survived in one of the earlier ditches.

Small-scale archaeological investigations at two adjacent properties off Taylor’s Lane have revealed new evidence for the origins of Swavesey Castle and for the use of the north-west quadrant of this once important fenland port-town during the medieval period. By the 15th century, when the town’s fortunes had somewhat declined, this area was given over to agriculture and a banked enclosure was established on the site, forming the southern extent of a group of previously-investigated fishponds and paddocks possibly associated with Swavesey Priory.

In the summer of 2000 a very limited investigation was undertaken to relocate the exact find spot for the Isleham Hoard, the largest collection of Bronze Age metalwork known from the British Isles, which had been originally discovered in 1959. The project was successful and also revealed archaeology of medieval date which corroborates the historical record for a village, manor and church at Little Isleham, near the parish boundary with Fordham, which had vanished by the early post-medieval period. This article provides details of the artefactual and feature evidence for a medieval fishpond and a 0.25ha moated site

Archaeological investigations undertaken at the Old Bishop’s Palace, the former see palace of the bishops of Ely, have uncovered several elements associated with the medieval episcopal complex. Of particular note is a large late thirteenth or early fourteenth-century masonry building. Situated at the rear of the palace precinct, on the edge of a large depression that was primarily formed via quarrying, this structure was flanked by a malting kiln and probably functioned as a brewhouse. In addition, dumped into the depression itself on an episodic basis were a series of fifteenth to early sixteenth-century kitchen waste deposits that contained a wide range of fauna, including numerous species of birds and fish. This latter material provides important evidence of conspicuous consumption in a late medieval episcopal household.

Volume 73 (1984) of the Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society contains a paper about the history of ‘the churches of Ashley and Silverley’. In 1991 Cambridge University Library acquired an interleaved copy of the Lysons Brothers guide to Cambridgeshire which incorporates a collection of 92 eighteenth-century sketches of historic buildings, including four remarkably accurate pictures of the churches at Ashley and Silverley. These provide new information about the churches’ appearance and history. A drawing of the ruins of Ashley church is of particular interest, as no image of this building was previously known. Other sources have also been discovered since the publication of the 1984 paper, including evidence that Silverley church tower was built between 1516 and 1528.

Between the 9th of March and 5th of November 2018 Archaeological Solutions Ltd (AS) conducted an archaeological excavation on land at 26 South End, Bassingbourn-cum-Kneesworth, Cambridgeshire. A preceding evaluation encountered a grid-like arrangement of ditches interpreted as part of a field system laid out respecting the slope of the river valley. The excavation identified further evidence of this field/enclosure system and recovered evidence to date it as medieval. The most notable element of the site, however, was the presence of a set of ditches stratigraphically earlier than the medieval ones but containing only very limited dating evidence. These were identified as the same features recorded during a previous excavation at Bassingbourn Village College. It appears that they may represent a large-scale landscape boundary of probably Iron Age to Roman date associated with the Mile Ditches and the limits of the area controlled by the Baldock oppidum. They would also appear to form part of a wider landscape of prehistoric ditches and boundaries present in the eastern Chilterns and along the route of the Icknield Way.

Medieval to modern suburban material culture and sequence at Grand Arcade, Cambridge. Craig Cessford and Alison Dickens. Cambridge Archaeological Unit Urban Archaeology Series The Archaeology of Cambridge Vol 1. McDonald Institute Monographs 2019. 495pp, numerous illus, £45.00. ISBN 9781902937786. Open Access PDF available from: <https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/305115>