Test Pit 21 - Fieldgate Nurseries

This pit was located in a field close to Bury Lane (now a track) to the rear of Fieldgate Nurseries, a family business started in 1969.

The Finds

The pottery from this test pit included seven Roman-era sherds, two sherds of St Neots Ware from the Late Saxon period, some Hedingham Ware and Hertfordshire Greyware from the late 12th-14th century AD, some Late Medieval sherds, some Glazed Red Earthenware dating to the post-medieval period and two Victorian-era sherds.

Other finds included metal nails and other metal scraps, shells, stone, brick, charcoal and some fragments of clay pipe and oyster shell. The faunal assemblage included six unidentifiable remains of sheep-sized animals.

This pit was located close to Test Pit 10. Both pits contained an seven Roman pottery sherds, suggesting a relatively consistent distribution and density of activity during this period across this area of Meldreth, and together with the Roman pottery finds from the main centre of the village they contribute towards a general scatter of Roman-era pottery that most likely corresponds to the presence of one or two farms surrounded by farmed fields at this time. The area then appears to have been abandoned until the Late Saxon or medieval periods when it was in use as fields during the 11th -14th centuries, with low-key activity and small-scale deposition continuing into the post-medieval period. It appears that this area has never been occupied by residential housing.

For an overview of the site and finds, please click on the image of the exhibition poster which is the first image in the gallery below.

For detailed analysis of the finds, please see the results sheet for this pit, which is available as a download at the bottom of this page.

For reports and maps relating to all of the test pits, please see the documents available on our results page.