Contd
The stratigraphy We began by digging three test pits on Evelyn’s half of the allotment, the northern part. The usual team of enthusiastic diggers took part and we were joined on both days by pupils from Henlow Middle School, to whom Chris Hobbs had given a talk a few weeks earlier. It is always good to involve young people in these projects, as this is how I first gained practical experience in archaeology, as did many of my colleagues. On the Saturday, there were more people on site and it was possible to excavate fourth trench, on the southern part of the site, which had only recently been brought back into cultivation. We located two of the trenches close to the churchyard wall, with one towards the road, giving a reasonable spread across that half of the site. We expected a considerable depth of topsoil (double digging in the allotment could mean that it would be up to half a metre thick, although, as it turned out, it had not taken place). Evelyn confirmed that when she took over the allotment in 2006, she used a rotavator on the soil to break it up for cultivation. Looking at gardening forums on the web, it appears that rotavators are not without controversy. Because they always dig to the same depth (claimed to be ten inches (0.25 m) by one commenter, although another site says 2-4 inches (0.05-0.10 m) with a further comment that 9 inches (0.23 m) is more likely), there is a risk of creating an impervious pan below the cultivation soil. This matches what was found in all three trenches in Evelyn’s half of the site, with a topsoil deposit of 0.10 to 0.15 m in depth. Underneath the topsoil in Trench I was a more yellowish and rather clayey deposit, which looked more like an archaeological deposit than recent cultivation. However, it contained a 1976 penny, which may have been pressed down into it by the rotavator, as it lay almost vertical in the soil. In Trench II, there was evidence for a bonfire (burnt clay in the soil and patches of sooty material), under which there was powdery brick. Beneath this, there was the same clayey deposit as in Trench I. This was also found in Trench III. Trench IV, to the south, proved rather different. Although there was a harder and clayey deposit beneath the topsoil, it contained quantities of late medieval and early post-medieval tile, which appeared to be deliberate inclusions. This indicated that the clay deposit had been specially laid, perhaps in the seventeenth century, which would be exactly right for the creation of the parish poorhouse. Finds Most of the finds from the topsoil were later post-medieval in date, largely later nineteenth and twentieth century and therefore dating from the period after the demolition of the poorhouse. According to Deborah Giles's book, the poorhouse was demolished around 1850, so this means that most of the material in the topsoil arrived once the site was empty of structures. There were a few sherds of probably eighteenth-century pottery. These would date to the period when the poorhouse was in use and it will be interesting to see the range of types. Knowing that the inhabitants were dependent on charity, their possessions will have been very basic and inexpensive, so we will learn about the “social status” of these pots.
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