Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 532: summary

Archaeological monitoring and excavation on the EDF Energy Networks cable route, Little Clacton, Essex: July-August 2009
by Adam Wightman and Howard Brooks

Date report completed: December 2009
Location: EDF Energy cable, Little Clacton, Essex
Map reference(s): TM1748118199 TM1906618974
File size: 895 kb
Project type: Monitoring and excavation
Significance of the results: **
Keywords: Iron Age, loomweight, medieval, building, post-medieval, cropmark ditch

Summary. An 11 km-long cable was laid by the contractor from Sackett’s Grove Caravan Park (Clacton-on-Sea) to Cook’s Green (Little Clacton). For most of this route, the cable was laid along existing roads or in existing ducts. Where the cable crossed open fields, ie for 1.7km of the route, the stripping of the easement was monitored by the Colchester Archaeological Trust. Where monitoring revealed archaeological features, these were excavated and recorded.

Evidence for prehistoric occupation consisted of an Iron Age ditch, and a residual Iron Age loomweight fragment. There were no Romano-British finds.

The most important archaeological feature was the site of a small, medieval rectangular structure with a burnt patch which was either a hearth or the base of an oven. It is not clear whether the structure was domestic or agricultural in function, or whether it was permanently or only occasionally occupied. An adjacent, right-angled gully appeared to be part of a similar medieval structure.

Two ditches forming part of an adjacent cropmark site were excavated where they crossed the easement. One was undatable, but the other was probably of post-medieval date and had been infilled within living memory.