Northamptonshire Archaeology 31

Sites at Irchester quarry, Brackmills Link Road, Northampton and Marsh Lane, Irthlingborough, investigated as part of separate developer funded projects, have produced evidence of Bronze Age burial in the form of ring ditches of former round barrows of early Bronze Age date. In addition, long term respect for these sites has been demonstrated by the presence of satellite cremation burials of middle Bronze Age date. The site at Irchester produced a small

Excavations on land of off Lime Street, Irthlingborough ,found activity from the early-middle Iron Age, Roman, Saxo-Norman and medieval periods. Part of an Iron Age settlement comprised some pits and a house ring ditch set within a small enclosure. Roman activity was represented by a scatter of residual pottery, some minor ditch systems and a small pit group. 11th century medieval settlement comprised group of postholes and pits, and a system of boundary ditches was probably of the same date. Through the 12th and 13th centuries activity was still sparse comprising a scatter of small pits and deep quarry pits. A pit containing a primary pottery assemblage of early 13th century date denotes the presence of a house. By the early 14th century a group of three buildings were established: a long malt house/barn, dovecote and a building with mortared walls that might have served as a kitchen/bakehouse These buildings are clearly appropriate to a manorial farm, and probably served a nearby manor house Later documentary evidence indicates that the land was owned by the Battaile manor of Irthlingborough. The scale of the malthouse suggests was used for commercial production. These buiIdings and associated pit groups were abandoned tit the end of the 14th century, after less century of use. After partial robbing the site seems to have been left undeveloped until terracing and further robbing occurred in the 18th century.

Following extensive trial trenching, a small excavation was undertaken ahead of residential development on land west of College Street, Higham Ferrers. A number of shallow ditches and pits indicate that the area was occupied through the twelfth century, and tenement plots had probably been established at this time. By the later thirteenth century several stone buildings had been constructed. The presence of a circular oven base and stone-lined drains suggests that these were ancillary buildings perhaps pertaining to a domestic residence fronting onto Collage Street, although no evidence for this was located. To the west a ditched and later walled boundary, found in the trial trenching appears to divide the frontage from the back plots, which contained only quarry pits and scattered pits and ditches. The buildings appear to have fallen out of use by the end of the fifteenth century when the town is known to have been in decline. The historic map evidence indicates that the southern part of the area was still undeveloped at the end of sixteenth century, and remained an orchard until well into the nineteenth century, despite extensive development to the immediate north from the eighteenth century onward.

Discusses current knowledge and recent research on the Roman and migration periods in the area, before looking at a number of major questions related to specific problems, which the evidence available has so far failed to answer. The author calls for a specific research agenda, focusing on the town of Durobrivae and its regional context.

Description of five ritual items -- fragments of two tazze and two paterae from a cemetery, apparently abandoned c. AD 170, at Malthouse Court in Towcester, along with a discussion of British and continental parallels; and a fragment of a possible lararium or small shrine, believed to have been found in a section of road ditch along Watling Street during the 1930s.

Summaries of fieldwork carried out in Northamptonshire during 2003