Cocks Farm villa, Abinger

Further excavation by the Roman Studies Group of SyAS, directed by D Bird and E Corke, in the field to the north-east of the Scheduled villa, exposed the north-east corner of a Roman enclosure. Its east–west oriented boundary consisted of substantial ditches, while there were seven successive parallel north–south boundaries, spaced 1–2m apart. They included palisades, a beamslot and posthole arrangement, ditches and probable hedges. The earlier of these were interrupted by an east–west track running alongside the northern edge of the Iron Age enclosure found previously to the west (SyAC 100, 282). Within the Roman enclosure were a number of parallel ditches on several alignments, possibly vineyard bedding trenches. In the corner of the enclosure, underlying pottery and tegulae, a placed deposit of bovid jawbones (AD 335–395) overlay a pit containing a redeposited probable cremation in part of a Deverel-Rimbury vessel. Charcoal from within this dated to 970–955 or 940–900 BC. The nearby ditch contained sherds of a Roman ceramic beehive.
Year: 
2016
ID: 
2731
NGR: 
TQ106474
Borough: