TEST PITS
ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEST PITS IN BINGHAM
List of Test Pits
LA32
TEALBY HOUSE, LONG ACRE
SUMMARY
- Tealby House is built on land that has been freehold and outside the Lord of the Manor’s estate at least since 1586. Because of this there are no details about habitations on the site in either of the two estate surveys carried out in 1586 and 1776. Other sources show that the land was part of Shearing Close on the Porter freehold before it was sold into private ownership to Richard Doncaster in 1813.
- On the 1841 tithe map Richard Doncaster is given as the owner/occupier of a cottage on the site. In the early 1900s the house was owned by William Wright. During this time there were stables and outhouses on the eastern side of the back garden. In 1957 Tealby House passed on to William Thompson when the stables and outhouses were demolished. It was next sold in 2016.
- The top 63 cm in the pit is entirely man made, with a natural sequence below to the base at 137 cm.
- From the bottom, the man made sequence consists of two hard surfaces. The lower one is made of pieces of brick well packed together and set on a layer of crushed red shale with a rutted upper surface. This is possibly late 18th century in age.
- On top of this brick surface is another layer of crushed red shale with grey sand above it.
- The upper brick surface is set in the sand. It consists mostly of whole bricks, well set together. It is not known if this is a path or a part of the yard; the most likely explanation is that is the yard outside the stables. The pottery indicates that it is a 19th C feature.
- A layer of rubble possibly from the demolition of the outhouses and stables rests on the upper brick surface with organic topsoil covering the rubble. Some medieval sherds were found in the topsoil.
- The natural sequence below 63 cm is dark at the top and becomes lighter below. There is no sign of major disturbance to this part of the section, though some mixing of the pottery types suggests that as elsewhere in Bingham the soil has been turned as a result of cultivation. Apart from a single sherd of Nottingham Light-bodied Green Glaze (1220-1320) the oldest finds in this part of the section were Midland Yellow Ware. Some very large pieces of this were found near the bottom resting directly on the weathered surface of the Triassic Mercia Mudstone. They were freshly broken and this would suggest that the pottery was deposited at some time in the late 16th or early 17th centuries where it was found. The only Modern pottery in this lower part is Cream Ware which dates from c1740 to 1850. All other types were 18th century or older. All the clay pipes below 90 cm were pre-1750.
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