A medieval tile kiln and enclosures at Bardfield Road, Finchingfield, Essex: excavation archive report

Two excavation areas were opened within the site: " Area 1 (c. 4960sqm): located to investigate the medieval sunken trackway and associated occupation; " Area 2 (c. 150sqm): located to investigate the possible prehistoric ring ditch, to the west of the palaeochannel running through the site. The excavation areas were set out and overburden was stripped from the excavation areas by a mechanical excavator. All machining was conducted under archaeological supervision. Generally, this was undertaken to the top of the natural substrate, where archaeological features were first encountered, although though machining ceased at a slightly higher level in the area around the kiln because of the complex nature of the remains. Archaeological features/deposits were investigated, planned and recorded and deposits were assessed for their palaeoenvironmental potential and samples were taken. From March to May 2022, a programme of archaeological investigation was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology at Bardfield Road, Finchingfield, Essex, at the request of The Hill Group. Two areas totalling c. 0.5ha were excavated within a larger development site. Evidence of medieval domestic, rural and industrial activity peripheral to the village was revealed. This was focussed on a trackway which appears to have been the original line of the road to neighbouring Bardfield, where it curved to skirt low lying ground Towards Finchingfield, part of a late 12th/early 13th century subdivided enclosure may have been the rear edge of a set of roadside settlement plots; within these intercutting pits were recorded. Further along the road, part of a second enclosure was associated with a post-built structure, an undated hearth, and a concentration of domestic waste including pottery, fired clay, a hook, a bobbin, and a small, varied collection of animal bones. Across the site more widely, there was a possible charcoal pit kiln and a series of shallow, regularly arranged subrectangular pits which may have been related to the small-scale exploitation of the natural clay and gravel. A handful of 'fiddle key' nails for fixing shoes suggests the presence of horses or oxen, whilst a piglet burial may indicate pig husbandry. In the 13th/14th century, new enclosures were created on the same alignment as the earlier ones. A tile kiln was built within one of these, dug into the slope at the side of the road. It was constructed from peg tiles, with a ramped stoke/rake-out pit and twin flues beneath a firing floor. An undated, modest post-built structure nearby may have been a shelter for the manufacture or drying of tiles, whilst a waste pit and more broadly dated medieval hearth and oven within the enclosure could, along with a nearby well, have been for subsistence or industry associated with the tile works. Other possibly related features include an extraction pit broadly dated to the 12th-14th centuries, another hearth/oven, and a series of pits in the lower lying, wetter area towards Finchingfield Brook that could have been for the extraction and puddling of clay. The early land ownership of the site has not been certainly established, and the patrons of the kiln and the identity of the tilers is not known. However, the kiln lay within 1km of a moated manor, Great Winsey ('Wenelishey' in the 14th century), and documentary evidence suggests that it may have lain on the edge of its associated estates: the kiln could have been commissioned to provide tiles for a house and its outbuildings. The track continued as a route into the late medieval and early post-medieval periods, when a ditch was dug across it. The line of Bardfield Road now runs further to the east, across a more recent causeway. A small number of prehistoric features and residual worked flints indicate earlier activity in this valley side location, over Finchingfield Brook to the east, one of its tributaries to the south and a large palaeochannel to the west.