Essex Archaeol Hist 24

Excavations at Bulls Lodge Farm produced activity ranging from LIA ditches, through earlier Roman occupation, to the substantial masonry foundations characterising the third, later Roman, phase. Specialist reports include `The pottery' by Colin Wallace (8-9) containing details of `Samian potter's stamps' by Brenda Dickinson (8), and `The coins' by S Wallis & M Winter (9). `The Roman brick and tile' (9-13) is followed by `Mortar' (13) and `Painted wall-plaster' (13), all by H Major who also covers `Miscellaneous finds' including metalwork, copper alloy objects (which covers brooches in this fabric), iron, lead, stone, burnt clay, fired clay, jet, bone and slag. `Glass' by J Shepherd (17-18) is succeeded by `Animal bone' by O Bedwin (18-19) and a note on the marine shell. A general discussion and bibliography conclude the proceedings.

Rescue excavations immediately south of the parish church are reported. The archaeological sequence began with a north-south ditch containing organic material from which a radiocarbon date in the later Bronze Age was obtained. The ditch corresponds to the western boundary of Eldeworth, the old enclosure, known from documentary sources. The start of the medieval urban sequence may date to the Saxo-Norman period. The earliest features consisted of lines of post holes at approximately right angles to the street frontage, plus three gullies. Later features included: late medieval chalk foundations, serving as the base of a timber-framed building; two deep pits of early-thirteenth-century date; a mid-thirteenth-century clay-floored building with an associated undercroft of the mid-sixteenth century; and a group of five ovens, probably of the town bakery. These latter dated, on pottery evidence, from c 1300 to the early-seventeenth century. An archaeomagnetic date for the earliest oven was late-thirteenth- to early-fourteenth-century, compatible with the pottery. Among the finds were two large groups of pottery belonging to the first half of the thirteenth century, a silver-gilt pin, a sceat of c AD~715, a pivoting knife blade and pricket candleholders of iron, and a piece of carved bone thought to derive from the decoration of an altar (thirteenth--fourteenth-century). A comprehensive `Documentary survey' by K N Bascombe (69-74) is included. An incidental discovery was made with the identification of the architect Thomas Leverton's birthplace.Specialist reports concerning artefactual evidence include `The pottery' by Rhona M Huggins (95-104), plus details of iron objects, copper alloy and silver-gilt objects, coins and jetons, clay pipes, glass, spindle-whorls and loom weights, building materials, leather, worked bone, and animal bone. There are also details of the environmental evidence including wood, macroscopic analysis, `Archaeomagnetic dating' by A J Clarke (111) and a radiocarbon date from brown vegetation calibrated to 1420-1105BC, much earlier than expected. Au & IH

Seven examples of this architectural type in the Essex region are appraised as part of an overview of the trend away from communal living toward structures affording greater personal privacy. Three-bay cross-wings are concluded to represent a logical development where aisled-hall and cross-wing were all of one build. Jetties and hips are viewed as an early `type' solution whose continued presence south of the Thames may result from an inherantly conservative approach to architectural adaptation in that region.

A description of an unusual spire, rising hexagonally from a triangular tower, set on an underframe encased in the top of that tower and surrounded by three spirelets covering the three subsequently unroofed corners. Construction methods for this almost unique structure are detailed, the only known parallel being the south-east spirelet at Canterbury Cathedral which has an octagonal spire rising from a square tower. Though no definite date can be assigned, it is thought likely to be an example of thirteenth-century work.

Work in the county during this year.

Aerial photography indicated a droveway/track characterised by two parallel ditches. A sub-rectangular enclosure yielded `Prehistoric pottery', reported by N Brown (218).

Details material from this four-year period.

Work to eliminate damp involved the stripping of render from the east and south walls revealing a number of features. Several different types of masonry indicated two main builds - medieval and post-medieval. Traces of a medieval stone altar were also detected, along with a post-medieval aumbry.

Work revealed a robbed out Roman podium, a few residual pieces of medieval pot, and post-medieval activity including the careful robbing out of the RB podium for building stone.