TEST PITS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST PITS IN BINGHAM
List of Test Pits
CB14 and CB15
19, CHURCH STREET
SUMMARY
- The plot of land on which these two pits were dug seems to have been freehold at least since 1586. Until the 1990s, when the northern half of the plot was sold for housing, the plot appears to have been unchanged in size and shape since then.
- There are records since 1586 of houses where the current house is.
- In both pits the upper layers reflect relatively recent building activity. In the northern pit it was when the summer house was built in the mid 20th C, but beneath this upper layer the sequence seems to be natural down to the basal glacial clay, though it has been dug into. In the southern pit, which is close to the house, the upper layer reflects recent landscaping, but the whole of the sequence below it down to the basal clay is made ground.
- In the southern pit, nearest the house, two post holes were found. A circular one, 3 cm in diameter was encountered at c 40 cm depth. A rectangular one 22 x 20 cm was encountered at c58 cm. Pottery found in fill in the larger hole is late 18th C, suggesting a structure of around that date. Nothing was found in the smaller hole, which topped higher in the sequence and is likely to be younger.
- The pottery finds in the southern pit are all in made ground and give little information about the site itself. The range of dates starts with Saxo-Norman Stamford Ware fabric B, which is 11th-12th C. There are several other medieval finds up to the early 14th C, after which there is a gap following the Black Death. There is one sherd of a transitional light-bodied gritty ware with a date range 1400 to 1500, but after that there is nothing until the late 17th C. This is a century later than the first record of a cottage on this site.
- In the northern pit there is a record in the pottery from Roman times to the Black Death in the mid 14th C, with a larger than usual proportion of Nottingham Splashed Ware with a date range 1150 to1300. Unusually, there are sherds of early Anglo-Saxon as well as Late Saxon pottery. One interesting find is a sherd of St Neot’s Ware (900-1170). This site is near the northern limits of its trading range. As in the other pit there is a single sherd of late or transitional Nottingham Light-bodied Gritty Ware (1400-1525), but nothing else until the appearance of Midland Yellow Ware, which dates from the late 16th C to 17th C. This is a century earlier than in the other pit, but it reflects on the documentary evidence of a cottage near here in 1586 and later. Overall, most pottery, as in the other pit, can be attributed to the late 17th and 18th centuries.
Click here for a detailed account of the pits.