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Summary

Site of ironworking smelting furnace. Single oval pit was identified during an evalution on land to the east of Steamer Quay Road, Bridgetown.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• IRON FURNACE (IV to VI - 380 AD to 540 AD) + Sci.Date

Full description

Smith, W. + Rainbird, P., 2015, Land at Riverside (East of Steamer Quay Road) Totnes: Excavation (Report - Excavation). SDV360875.

Following on from the evaluation, an archaeological excavation was undertaken by AC archaeology during September 2014 and June-July 2015. Three areas were excavated centred on a series archaeological features identified during the evaluation.

Pit furnace F102, excavated during the evaluation phase, was deemed appropriate for radiocarbon dating, as its lowest fill (105) was sealed by deposits of furnace lining and slag. A single piece of charcoal was selected and submitted for AMS dating to the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre. The AMS radiocarbon date and the result is given in Table 4. Calibration of the result has been achieved using the data set published by Reimer et al. (2013) and performed using the program OxCal4 (on-line at: c14.arch.ox.ac.uk). The calibrated date range cited is that with 95.4% confidence and has been rounded out to the nearest 10 years.

The result from the charcoal of 1620±30BP calibrates to cal AD 380-540 at 95% probability, and indicates a late Romano-British or post-Roman/Early Medieval date for the sample. Locally the centuries following the end of the Roman government of southern Britain is a poorly understood period and this date means that the pit furnace can be added to a small corpus of sites, including Hazard Farm near Totnes which can be identified as belonging to this period only by radiocarbon dating (see Pears and Rainbird 2014, 67).

Hughes, S. + Kerr-Peterson, K. + Valentin, J., June 2012, Land to the East of Steamer Quay Road, Bridgetown, Totnes: Results of an Archaeological Trench Evalution (Report - Evaluation). SDV349727.

Trench 1 contained an ironworking smelting furnace, located towards the north-west end which contained evidence of iron working. The pit measured 0.74 metres long, 0.61 metres wide and 0.07 metres deep, and had steep to vertical sides to the south, gradual sloping sides in the north and a flat base. On the base of the feature was a thin deposit of dark brownish-grey silty-clay that had frequent charcoal inclusions. This was overlain by pieces and fragments of iron furnace slag, tap slag and fired clay furnace lining, which was sealed by a final deposit of mid brown silty-clay, containing abundant slate fragment and moderately common charcoal fleck inclusions. No finds were recovered from fills.

The nature of construction and techniques used means this could conceivably date from the Iron Age through to the medieval period. The feature was found in isolation within the trench and was located in the higher part of the site and exposed to the west, with no indications from the geophysical survey that other features of this type are present nearby (Carey Consulting 2011). However, evidence for ironworking, although not in situ, was found within Trench 5, located circa 200 metres to the north-west.

The ironworking smelting furnace in Trench 1 produced the majority of evidence for ironworking on the site.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds

• FDV5179 - SLAG (Undated)

Associated Events

• EDV7514 - Excavation: Land at Riverside (East of Steamer Quay Road) Totnes (Ref: ACD975/2/1)

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