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Summary

Two Iron Age enclosures and a linear ditch.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• DITCH (Iron Age - 700 BC to 42 AD (Between))
• DITCHED ENCLOSURE (Iron Age - 700 BC to 42 AD (Between))

Full description

Stead, P. + Payne, N., 18/06/2013, Land at and adjacent to Fairfield House, St Loyes, Topsham Road, Exeter (Report - Excavation). SDV351651.

Earlier excavation carried out by Exeter Archaeology (Steinmetzer + Salvatore 2010) exposed two phases of a late Iron Age enclosure settlement. A later excavation carried out by AC archaeology (2013) exposed part of an Iron Age linear ditch, benenath a Roman timber building. Aligned northeast-southwest the ditch survived over a distance of 6.1m. It featured a rounded terminus to the north-east, but had been completely removed to the south-west by the insertion of a sunken boiler room associated with Fairfield House. It measured between 0.8 – 1m wide by up to 0.55m deep, with steep sides and a rounded base. The ditch had been infilled predominantly with very compacted gravel, which contained no dating evidence. Roman pottery was recovered from its upper two fills, suggesting that final infilling of the ditch occurred immediately prior to the construction of Roman phasing.

Artefacts recovered from this linear ditch comprised of 14 amphora body sherds in two fabrics, a whetstone fragment and four small body sherds, possibly amphora, and a broken flint flake.

Chapman, E. M. + Hunter, F. + Wilson, P. + Booth, P., 2011, Sites Explored 2010 (Article in Serial). SDV361579.

Former St Loye’s College, Topsham Road (SX 9363 9073): evaluation in 2008 in advance of proposed development found evidence for two closely-spaced defensive ditches characteristic of Roman military design.
Open area excavation of the 1.6 hectare site in 2010 revealed archaeological evidence stretching from the prehistoric to post-medieval periods. A late pre-Roman Iron Age settlement was represented by at least two successive enclosure ditches, both of which appeared to have surrounded a single, centrally placed roundhouse approximately 7 metres in diameter. The ditch was deliberately infilled to ground level during the Roman military period (c. A.D. 55–75). The enclosure ditch fill deposits contained a Roman military pottery assemblage, including samian ware and other imported fine wares, The pottery finds included a samian vessel with the potter’s stamp of NESTOR (A.D. 55–65).
A post-trench Roman military workshop building was constructed on top of the infilled ditch. The recorded remains of timber buildings within the base included a workshop, arranged around three sides of a courtyard (a) with an aisled hall (fabrica) to the west and an accommodation block forming the north range, and the rear of a series of timber buildings of more than one phase.
A number of industrial features considered to be of the Roman civil period were recorded in the western part of the site whilst to the east were the parallel boundaries of a Roman field-system.
Five inhumation burials were found towards the bottom of the site well away from the route of the Roman road.

Ordnance Survey, 2013, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV350786.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds

• FDV5378 - BODY SHERD (Iron Age - 700 BC to 42 AD)
• FDV5381 - FLINT (Iron Age - 700 BC to 42 AD)
• FDV5379 - WHETSTONE (Iron Age - 700 BC to 42 AD)

Associated Events

• EDV6189 - Archaeological Excavation and Proposal for Further Works, Land at and adjacent to Fairfield House St Loyes, Topsham Road, Exeter (Ref: ACD649/3/0)

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