Monument record 0768400000 - 44 Temple Street, Brill

Evaluation trial trenching carried out by John Moore Heritage Services in May 2013 in advanced of proposed redevelopment, identified medieval and post-medieval features and pottery, including a single pottery waster, suggesting that the adjacent medieval pottery and tile kiln site [CAS 05712] may extend to the north. The earliest feature was an oval pit 0.6m wide and 0.4m deep with steep sides and a flat base and with 13th century pottery from the fill. Two postholes are interpreted as the remains of a fence-line possibly associated with a N-S aligned boundary ditch, 1.6m wide and 0.5m deep, with sloping sides and rounded base, which seems to have gone out of use in the 16th century. Pottery finds include 13th to 17th century Brill products, one of which shows signs of being a kiln waster. See report for detail (B1).

A single sherd of Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age Micaceouse Flint ware of the post Deverel-Rimbury Plainware tradition was recovered from the fill of one of two ovoid pits (B2).
Roman activity is represented by a residual sherd of Grey sandy Ware (B2).
The first substantial activity on site is represented by a series of pits and ditches dated to the 13th-14th centuries. A curvi-linear ditch was between 0.70m and 1.90m wide and between 0.34m and 0.77m deep and was interpreted as an enclosure ditch. 6 further pits of 13th-14th century date were also identified suggesting close proximity to a croft. The medieval features were overlain by a light yellowish-brown silty sand cultivation soil of c. late 14th-16th century date indicating the site had periodicaly gone out of use (B2).
16th-18th Century pits and a north-south aligned ditch represent the next phase of activity cutting through the cultivation soil layer. Sherds of post-medieval Brill/Boarstall Ware were recovered from several of the pits. The post-medieval features were overlain by a ploughsoil 0.45m thick present across the whole site suggesting a second phase of agricultural use (B2).

The pottery assemblage from the excavation denotes a lack of 15th century pottery suggesting a perodic abandonment of occupation during this time (B2).