The Field Barn, West Fenwick, Matfen, Northumberland: Watching Brief

The project, involved archaeological monitoring of any excavations going deeper than the topsoil. Excavations were to be carried out with a small 360� mechanical excavator, using a toothless ditching bucket, although the garage footings were excavated with a toothed bucket due to the contractor having no toothless bucket. The original plan according to planning advice was that the footprints of the buildings were to be fully excavated to natural geology by way of a 'Strip, Map and Record' excavation. In practice, the foundations of the extension and the garage were excavated as strip foundations to the depth of the natural geology under archaeological supervision, as the inner floor level did not need reducing below topsoil. Archaeological works at West Fenwick produced only an undated gully of north-east to south-west alignment, observed in the east leg of the footing trenches in the angle of the barn building and its extension. This gully was shallow, with a sterile fill that produced no finds, and was inconsistent with the alignment of the road, medieval earthworks and the farm ranges. These results did not obviously or clearly contribute to a specific Research Framework, despite the potential of the site to inform Research Agendas from the North East Regional Research Framwork 2.0, especially agendas MD20: 'How did the region's medieval rural settlements emerge and develop during the medieval period?' and MD21: 'How can we better understand medieval field systems?'.