Monument record 0975600000 - Church Farm, Church Lane

Test pit 12: the stratigraphy of this test pit was shallow, terminating on a limestone bedrock. In the upper there were post-medieval sherds, all overlying a stony which might have served as a floor surface. Sealed below this surface, and indicating its date of construction were five sherds of Potterspury ware. This layer also contained the only sherd of Cotswold-type Oolithic Ware to recovered from any of the Lillingstone Lovell test pits. Whilst difficult to interpret a single sherd with confidence, its presence here is unsurprising, so close as it is to the church, onr of the best indicators of the earliest part of the village. It may be that a pre-village nucleus had been established here by the end of the 10th century, from which the medieval village grew. This is supported by the discoveries found in TP 18 (0976200000). The main conclusions, however, to be drawn from the evidence from this test pit relate to later developments, the construction of a floor in the mid-thirteenth century and its abandonment at some period between the seventeenth and nineteenth century (B1).