TEST PITS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST PITS IN BINGHAM
List of Test Pits
LA29
56A, LONG ACRE
SUMMARY
- Documentary evidence suggests that this site was inhabited from at least 1586. The original plot of land extended from Long Acre to The Banks and remained intact until after the tithe map of 1841.
- Either late in the 19th or early in the 20th centuries the plot was divided into a northern and southern half. The house on Long Acre was named Eskdale in the early 20th C and owned by Christopher Shaw. The first record we have of a house being built on the southern half is Appletrees, built by Christopher’s son, John Beetham Shaw, in 1925. In the early 20th century the outbuildings along the eastern boundary behind Eskdale House were used as an office. They were not converted into houses until the 1980s.
- The topsoil is modern and was probably laid when the house was converted in the 1980s.
- Beneath it is a layer of building rubble probably derived from the work carried out during the conversion.
- Beneath the rubble at c35 cm depth is a natural sequence from dark , organic topsoil down to the basal clay at a depth of 50 cm. The basal clay is shale of the Triassic Mercia Mudstone Group. A layer of stones was found at the top of the basal clay. This is a common weathering product of this type of bedrock.
- Bones and teeth, rusted nails and clay pipe pieces were found at all depths. Among the clay pipes were fragments of 17th and early 18th C pipes.
- Modern pottery including Unglazed Red Earthenware mainly from plant pots was found only in the top 35 cm., that is the topsoil and the rubble.
- All the post-medieval pottery was collected from beneath the layer of rubble . Several types of pottery were found spanning the 16th to 18th centuries.
- There was nothing older than 16th century in the pit.
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