Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 562: summary

Report on an archaeological trial-trenching evaluation: proposed reservoir site, land north of Redgate House, Wherstead, Suffolk: August-September 2010
by Ben Holloway and Howard Brooks

Date report completed: September 2010
Location: land north of Redgate House, Wherstead, Suffolk
Map reference(s): TM 162 401
File size: 2,316 kb
Project type: Trial-trenching evaluation
Significance of the results:
Keywords: ditch

Summary. An archaeological evaluation was carried out in advance of the construction of an agricultural reservoir on a 2.2ha site on land north of Redgate House, Wherstead, Suffolk. The 5% evaluation was achieved by cutting 21 trial-trenches (combined length 611m). Thirteen features were revealed, of which only three were dated (generally by very small quantities of finds): one Romano-British pit, one medieval field ditch, and one post-medieval field ditch. Shared alignment may indicate than another ditch was post-medieval. Six other features were undated (some may be post-medieval), and the remaining two were ‘natural’ pits. A small amount of Roman and medieval material was recovered from the subsoil, and a small assemblage of flints was collected from the surface ploughsoil. Depths of topsoil and subsoil were fairly consistent across the site, and there was no evidence of presence of masking colluvial/alluvial deposits. No soil samples were taken because of the lack of contexts with the potential for the survival of environmental evidence.