Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 1161: summary

A Roman and medieval agricultural landscape: Archaeological excavation at St Andrew's Road, Weeley, Essex, CO16 9HR: April-May 2017
by Laura Pooley (with contributions from Stephen Benfield, Lisa Gray, Sarah Carter, Jane Roberts)

Date report completed: September 2017, revised June 2018
Location: St Andrew's Road, Weeley, Essex, CO16 9HR
Map reference(s): TM 14930 22120
File size: kb
Project type: Excavation
Significance of the results:
Keywords:

Summary. An archaeological excavation was carried out in advance of the construction of fourteen new dwellings on land at St Andrew's Road, Weeley. Evaluation in 2016 uncovered a number of Roman features together with silt-filled hollows. Excavation revealed two Neolithic features (a pit/tree-throw and pit) together with a small number of residual Neolithic pottery sherds and pieces of worked flint. Late Iron Age/Early Roman activity (mid 1st century BC to the mid/late 1st/2nd century AD) consisted of a small semicircular enclosure surrounded by irregular field boundaries and pits. These were replaced in the Roman period (2nd-3rd century) with a rectilinear field system. A large metalled ground-hollow(s) dating to the late 13th to 14th centuries was likely a watering-hole for livestock, indicating the presence of a previously unknown medieval farm in the vicinity.