Signs of Roman buildings, and a settlement of Iron Age roundhouses from over 2000 years ago, were certainly not what Aggregate Industries wanted to find when archaeological surveys were carried out at Straitgate Farm in 2014. But what did it expect? The site's prominent hilltop position was an important junction, where a Roman road (the Fosse Way – the old A30) crossed a Saxon road (B3180) running from the Blackdown Hills to Exmouth.
v. stræt , geat . The farm lies by the Roman road to Exeter. For the geat , v. supra 603 n.
Results from the trench evaluation at Straitgate revealed that:
Including the Long Range site and Areas 2 and 6 at Straitgate it is apparent that this Iron Age open settlement extends over an area of potentially c. 10 hectares... based on the geophysics and trench results, around 12-15 further roundhouses in total might be anticipated... Three pieces of Romano-British period tile from overlying deposits and two holed slates from the large ditch in Trenches 22 and 56 may indicate a ‘Romanised’ building is present in the vicinity... new evidence for Romano-British settlement was identified, dated from the artefacts recovered to the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD, including a substantial linear ditch of 30m length, c. 5m width and over 2.2m depth.
Based on these finds, Aggregate Industries put forward a proposed archaeological mitigation map.
Condition 23 of the Planning Inspectorate's permission to quarry Straitgate Farm says:
No development shall take place until a written Archaeological Scheme of Investigation has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Mineral Planning Authority and implementation of a programme of archaeological work has been secured. The development shall be carried out at all times in accordance with the approved scheme.
One company that knows a thing or two about Archaeological Schemes of Investigation is brick-producer Forterra, or Hanson Building Products as it was previously known. Last week, it announced that archeological investigations of a 3,000 year old Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm, a quarry close to its Kings Dyke brickworks in Whittlesey, Peterborough, had set it back in excess of £500k.
The quarry provides Oxford Clay, used in the production of London Bricks. The material has been quarried in the area for more than 140 years.
The Must Farm project, described as "Britain’s Pompeii":
was a 10-month excavation of a settlement at the site that was destroyed by fire, causing it to collapse into a river channel, preserving the contents in situ.
decaying timbers were discovered protruding from the southern face of the quarry pit at Must Farm. Subsequent investigations in 2004 and 2006 dated the timbers to the Bronze Age and identified them as a succession of large structures spanning an ancient watercourse.
During the excavation in 2015-16 by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) of four large wooden roundhouses and a square entranceway structure:
archaeologists retrieved almost 200 wooden artefacts, more than 150 fibre and textile items, 128 pottery vessels and more than 90 pieces of metalwork. More than 18,000 pieces of structural wood were recorded.
Two open-access publications, published and funded by Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, have now been launched detailing the finds, and next month some of the preserved objects will go on display at Peterborough Museum.
The Department of Archeology at the University of Cambridge wrote:
Detailed monographs on thousands of artefacts pulled from the settlement at Must Farm reveals the surprisingly sophisticated domestic lives of Bronze Age Fen people, from home interiors to recipes, clothing, kitchenware and pets
This week, Forterra, having shared the £1.1m cost of the excavation, claimed to be "delighted to have been involved in the uncovering and documenting of Must Farm".
Forterra may claim to be delighted now, but excavation of the site might never have happened had the company had its way. In 2014, Hanson had pushed to leave the archeology in situ. However, Cambridgeshire County Council, on advice from English Heritage and the University of Cambridge, Division of Archaeology, said in a Planning Committee report:
9.1 It is recommended that the applicants be advised that the proposed revised rewetting scheme submitted in May 2013 is considered to be contrary to the provisions of Policy CS36 in that the revised scheme of preservation in situ is not considered suitable or appropriate in the circumstances and refused.9.2 It is further recommended that Hanson be advised that they should, within the next three months submit a further revised scheme of archaeological mitigation being a focused strategy to retrieve and record the vulnerable remains of the Late Bronze Age Timber Platform Site at the edge of Old Must Pit, in order to safeguard the remains from further damage or decay.
Fortunately for Hanson, the company was successful with a subsequent application to English Heritage (now Historic England) to cover half the excavation costs.
The rest, as they say, is history.
