TEST PITS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST PITS IN BINGHAM
List of Test Pits
CC03
12 HOLME ROAD
SUMMARY
- Until the Church Farm estate was built in the 1960s there is no evidence that this site was ever near any habitation. The records show that it was rented as farm land from at least 1586. In the late 17th C it was likely to have been arable and farmed by the land owner’s bailiff. Thereafter it was probably used mainly for pasture and in the 19th C the field the test pit is in was called Home Close, which possibly gave rise to the modern street name Holme Road.
- The soil profile is conventional and gives no indication that any part of it has been introduced. It is particularly hard and compacted, probably by being loaded with heavy machinery during the 1960s building. Unlike many other pits it is not possible to speculate that the topsoil has been re-deposited, though the garden at the back of the house has been extensively landscaped.
- There were only 42 finds recorded from this pit, but the range in pottery types is impressive. Included are Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Late Saxon, Saxo-Norman, medieval to modern. The distribution of these finds with respect to depth was random and they are mostly severely eroded, indicating that the ground has been turned during cultivation from early times. This is most likely to have been during the medieval period when Bingham was extensively cultivated. There are only three sherds from the period late 17th to 19th C, the time when it is most likely that this land was under pasture.
- There are too few medieval sherds to be sure of the full medieval date range represented here, but the identifiable ones are all pre-mid 14th C. The nearest other pits to this site all show a cut-off at the mid 14th C Black Death and it is quite likely that this site fell into disuse at the same time.
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