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Boxworth Village Green Project
Location: Cambridgeshire
The discovery in 2002 of Roman-British pottery in the spoil from a group of rabbit holes in Spring Close Boxworth led to a test pit being excavated in June 2003 as part of the Time Teams ‘Big Dig’ project.
This test pit exposed evidence of Romano-British and late Iron Age occupation on the site. Based on this evidence, the Boxworth Village Research Group was formed, and obtained a grant from the Local Heritage Initiative to undertake further archaeological investigation of the site.
The BVRG planned for the project to be undertaken in three stages, Survey, Excavation and Post-excavation. The survey phase comprised:
1 - A physical survey of the existing earthworks on the site.
2 - A physical survey of a holloway, which was the disused medieval High Street, and ran along the southern side of the site.
3 - A limited geophysical survey of one hectare, using both Resistivity and Magnetometery.
From the results of this survey the BVRG organised a community based training excavation, which was overseen by the Cambridgeshire Archaeological Field Unit. The excavation was run over 4 weeks from the 14th June to 9th July 2004, with 10 trainee excavators attending per week.
4 major trenches A1, A2, B1 and D1 with three ancillary trenches A3, C1 and D2 were excavated. From these trenches evidence of occupation from the Iron Age through to the Medieval period were recovered. In addition to pottery, animal bones and building materials, the finds included Medieval, Romano-British and Iron Age ditches, and an early Romano-British kiln. In addition the excavation uncovered evidence from the period of transition between the end of the Roman period and the start of the Saxon one.
In July 2005, experimental archaeology was undertaken with the construction and firing of a copy of the Romano-British kiln that had been recovered. The pots fired included those made from local Boxworth clay removed during the 2004 excavation, and those made by the local primary school. The whole experiment was filmed by Time Team as part of their ‘Big Roman Dig’ project.
The excavation report is currently in production, and funding is being sought to allow further excavation of the kiln and other features revealed by the geophysics to be undertaken.
Group Name |
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Boxworth Village Research Group |
| Project Contact |
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Ian Taylor |
| Address |
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5 School Lane. Boxworth. Cambridgeshire. CB3 8ND |
| Project Postcode |
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CB3 8ND |
| Finishing Date |
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31 Dec 2006 |
| Grants: |
Heritage Lottery Fund: £24977
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