In November 1998 ARCUS was commissioned by Entec Limited, on behalf of their clients, Hepworth Minerals and Chemicals Limited, to undertake an archaeological field survey of land at Messingham Quarry, Lincolnshire (NGR SE 9230 0320). The area is subject to a planning condition requiring a programme of archaeological works prior to and during a planned quarry extension. This report describes the results of Phase 1 of the fieldwalking survey, carried out on December Ist to 3rd 1998. The ploughed area of the field was fieldwalked on a 10m grid. Finds included medieval and post-medieval pottery, worked flint, glass, slag, clay pipe, metal, post-medieval brick and tile, and field drain fragments. Aside from the slag, these were all distributed randomly throughout the field. The slag was found in a strong concentration in the northwest corner of the field, with a much smaller and less significant scatter of finds in the east end. The slag appears to represent a transitional phase between medieval bloomery furnace technology and post-medieval blast furnace technology.
Ronald Ross (Thu,) studied this question.