Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 433: summary

An archaeological evaluation at 'Skyline 120' Area A, Great Notley business park, near Braintree, Essex: July-August 2007
by Wightman, A. (with contributions from Crummy, N.)

Date report completed: August 2007
Location: Great Notley, Essex
Map reference(s): TL73802178 (centre)
File size: 356KB kb
Project type: Evaluation
Significance of the results:
Keywords: Stane Street, Medieval, Annular Brooch, Post-Medieval

Summary. An archaeological evaluation consisting of 831.1m of trenches was carried out between July and August 2007. Features were found to be spread very thinly over the site and were almost all linear cuts resembling ditches or gullies, with a few pitlike features. Some parts of the site, in particular in the south-west, were found to be devoid of archaeology, with features recorded in thirteen of the 24 trenches. Only five of the 27 features recorded produced any finds. Of those features without finds, most were natural in appearance and may have been the result of natural processes occurring during the last Ice Age or of more recent activity such as the felling of trees or invasive agricultural practices. Postmedieval field drains and likely field boundaries observable on the 1881 1:10,560 OS map were excavated in the western and north-eastern parts of the site, while linears which did not produce any artefacts dominated the archaeology of the rest of the site. The absence of any Late Iron Age and early Roman finds indicates minimal activity in this area associated with the probable farmstead to the south-west of the site (excavations by CAT in 2006). This implies that most of the land here was not inhabited or used for arable farming in that period, and it has been suggested that it was heathland.