Title: |
Archaeological Test Pit Excavations in West Wickham, Cambridgeshire, 2013 |
Series: |
Access Cambridge Archaeology unpublished report series
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Downloads: |
accessca1-193304_1.pdf (10 MB)
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Licence Type: |
ADS Terms of Use and Access
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DOI |
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Publication Type: |
Report (in Series)
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Abstract: |
This report presents the results of the West Wickham Big Dig programme of excavation of eighteen 1m2 archaeological 'test pits' in the Cambridgeshire parish of West Wickham in summer 2013. The excavations were funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund's 'All Our Stories' grant to West Wickham and District Local History Club and were supported by Cambridge Community Heritage, funded by the AHRC. The results indicated that the landscape around West Wickham was extensively but lightly used by humans in the prehistoric period, although two pits yielding Bronze Age pottery hints at settlement or mortuary activity in the vicinity of the present church. No evidence of Roman date at all was found in the test pits within the present village, with the earliest post-prehistoric finds dating to the Anglo-Norman period, which were found near the parish church of St. Mary, suggesting that the present settlement at West Wickham was founded in this period as a small hamlet, arranged as a thinly occupied interrupted row, predating the foundation of Streetly End or Burton End. In the high medieval period, this settlement appears to have taken the form of a small nucleated village around a green extending east from the church of St Mary. Both Streetly End and Burton End appear to be later in date than West Wickham, but were in existence by 1100-1200 AD. This process of high medieval settlement expansion was abruptly arrested in the later medieval period, which saw the volume of pottery recovered severely reduced, with none at all found at Burton End. Recovery was not established until after the end of the medieval period, but was robust when it did occur, with the dispersed character hamlet-dominated character of the high medieval settlement pattern maintained until the later 19th/early 20th century. |
Author: |
Carenza Lewis
B Bailie
James Morris
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Publisher: |
Access Cambridge Archaeology
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Other Person/Org: |
Historic England (OASIS Reviewer)
Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record (OASIS Reviewer)
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Year of Publication: |
2014
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Locations: |
Site: |
West Wickham |
County: |
Cambridgeshire |
District: |
South Cambridgeshire |
Parish: |
WEST WICKHAM |
Country: |
England |
Grid Reference: 561302, 249150 (Easting, Northing)
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Subjects / Periods: |
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Identifiers: |
OASIS Id: |
accessca1-193304 |
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Note: |
A4, 131 pages, comb bound
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Source: |
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Created Date: |
01 Feb 2018 |