Land at Moat Hall, Main Road, Saltfleetby All Saints, East Lindsey, Lincolnshire: Archaeological Evaluation Report

The evaluation consisted of two trenches targeting the footprints of each of the proposed new buildings: Trench 1 was to measure 10m x 2m and investigate the annexe, while Trench 2 was to measure 20m x 2m and investigate the cart shed and workshop. The original trenching plan had to be modified on site, as the north-western end of Trench 1 proved to be close to a live electricity cable, while the northern end of Trench 2 was too close to standing buildings for the excavator to manoeuvre safely: Trench 1 was shortened by 1m and Trench 2 moved 1m further southwards. The trenches were located on the site by triangulation from existing mapped features, and checked for live services with a Cable Avoidance Tool before being machine excavated under archaeological supervision, using a 3-tonne mini-digger fitted with a toothless ditching bucket; a machine sondage was excavated at the northern end of Trench 2 in order to ensure that the natural drift geology had been correctly identified and no buried soils or earlier archaeological horizons lay beneath it. The exposed surfaces were then cleaned by hand, and the features encountered were sample excavated. Although the dating evidence is slight, the evaluation identified a sequence of occupation on the site during the post-medieval period and into the modern period. A fragment of wall exposed in Trench 2 may derive from the building shown on the 1841 tithe award plan: the presence of a stone quoin block in an area with no local access to building stone suggests that the building had been constructed with a generous budget and some thought to both durability and appearance, as might be expected from an outbuilding of a prosperous farm. The shallowness of all the features exposed suggests that the site has been truncated and levelled repeatedly.