Archaeological Evaluation and Excavations: Land Between Long Green and Braintree Road, Cressing, Essex; Final Archive Report

A preceding Desk-Based Assessment in 2018 and the first phase of trial-trench investigation on the site during 2022 took place prior to the current work. Eighty-two trial-trenches were excavated across the 12.8ha site. Subsequent to the findings of that work, four excavation areas (A-D) were identified for mitigation, totalling 8,895sq m. Nine remaining trenches from the evaluation were also excavated, in an area previously occupied by a copse of trees. A small assemblage of worked flint dating broadly from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic were found residually in later features. Alongside the Bronze Age pottery recovered from two pits during the first phase of evaluation, these finds suggest a transitory use of the landscape during most of the prehistoric period. The earliest evidence for land use on site consisted of a single posthole, a short length of gully, and a cremation burial pit in Area D, dated to the Iron Age. These features span the length of the period; pottery sherds from the posthole and gully date to the earliest Iron Age, while the cremation burial is later, dating to the Late Iron Age/Early Roman period. Although securely dated features and artefactual material were sparse, the remains appear to represent part of a rural settlement occupied in the Early Iron Age. Following its abandonment, the landscape appears to be used for funerary purposes, likely serving at the hinterland to Late Iron Age centres at Braintree and Mill Lane. No evidence for subsequent Roman activity was identified during the excavations. The remains of medieval land use activity dating from the 12th to the 14th centuries was found in the north-east, consisting of parallel ditches running along Long Green Road and three other linear features that appear to define a partial enclosure and associated trackways, potentially defining the edge of a roadside farmstead settlement. A nearby pit cluster suggest possible resource extraction in the form of quarrying outside the enclosure. Post-medieval remains were limited to broadly NW/SE and NE/SW orientated ditches recorded across the site. The ditches either align with or are perpendicular to known former field boundaries shown on the 1842 Tithe Map. Historic Ordnance Survey mapping shows little change in the field layouts until the late 20th century when they were backfilled to form larger land parcels. The modern period was represented by the remains of a First World War defensive trench line constructed in late 1914 that was uncovered in the centre of the site.