RICK e First Village Cin

Contributors

ext by Andrew Mudd and Rob Maseeld, with contributions from Ann TWoodward, Andy Chapman and Peter Ellis Reconstruction drawings by Mark Gridley

Photography by sta of Cotswold Archaeology and MOLA (formerly Northamptonshire Archaeology); Prologis; Aerial-Cam

Graphics by Lucy Martin, Matt Pearson and Daniel Bashford

Design by Lucy Martin, Aleksandra Osinska and Andrew Mudd

Printed by AJ Green Printing Ltd, Gloucester

Published by Cotswold Archaeology in association with RPS Group on behalf of Prologis

© Cotswold Archaeology and RPS Group PLC 2014

Front and back covers: Artist’s impression of the site from the east c. 200 BC (Mark Gridley, Carbonmade)

The site of Crick Covert Farm

Long Dole

Watling Street

county boundary

The northern part of the site in 2013 looking east. Introduction N

he construction of the International Rail Freight Terminal, to the west Tof Crick in Northamptonshire, over the past 20 years, has led to archaeological discoveries that are transforming our understanding of the pre-Roman Iron Age landscape. e density of settlement uncovered invites a comparison with an extended village – a remarkable discovery and one totally unexpected when the development of this major infrastructure project started. N Prologis is proud to be associated with this extraordinary archaeological site and to have sponsored the analysis of these excavations leading to the story related here.

Mark Shepherd Prologis

Covert Farm

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

Long Dole

Crick Hotel Lane Site area without settlement

The Lodge Iron Age and Roman settlement

county boundary 0 1km Site location

he excavations took place within a 178-hectare area of land on the border of TNorthamptonshire and Warwickshire, with lying just 4 km to the north. It is a watershed region of clay uplands capped with occasional outcrops of glacially-derived sands and gravels. The possible northern entrance to the It is within this rather damp and unpromising landscape that one of the largest settlement through a Iron Age settlements in the country was revealed. e area of settlement gap in the perimeter comprised ve blocks of farmsteads encompassing a small valley through which embankment, with Clion Brook ows northward to join the headwaters of the Warwickshire Avon. Long Dole (right) and Covert Farm (left). Cattle e largest of these at Covert Farm (Crick) was almost continuous with Long Dole are being taken from to the north and Crick Hotel to the south. To the south lay another settlement at the core pastureland e Lodge, while a linear settlement at Norto Lane () anked the valley to to summer floodplain the west. ey formed a curve of farmsteads overlooking the valley and bounded, meadows down the at least in part, by an embankment. valley. Bronze Age cremations and loomweight pit

here were traces of human Toccupation as far back as the Neolithic period (c 4000 – 2500 BC) in the form of occasional fragments of pottery and intwork from Covert Farm. Later, in the early Bronze Age, a cremation burial was made in a small pit at Norto Lane. e cremated bone, which had been burnt white and was very fragmentary, represented the remains of an adult and a child and was dated by radiocarbon to 1976 – 1868 BC. e tradition of burial here continued into later centuries. Seven Bronze Age cylindrical more cremation burials of both adults loomweight in a small and children a little further west yielded radiocarbon dates in the range 1600 pit. – 1400 BC, so it seems that the site was used for burial on an intermittent basis during the Bronze Age.

Rather than being contained within urns, the bone had been collected and placed directly within small pits. Fragments of charcoal with the bone show that oak was the fuel used for the pyre. Oak was normally used as it burns at a consistently high temperature necessary for complete cremation (over 800° C). Flax plant and seed

capsules. Although Another Bronze Age ‘burial’ of perhaps comparable wool was a common signicance was that of a complete cylindrical clay material for textiles loomweight, which had been placed in a small pit. ere was by the Bronze Age, a lot of charcoal associated with it, unusually comprising flax has a much mostly seeds of ax. It is likely that ax was cultivated nearby, earlier usage. but since no Bronze Age settlement was apparent, it seems The stems that burning and burial may have been a commemorative would have practice like the cremation rite in this location. A ax seed been retted was dated by radiocarbon to 1426 – 1281 BC. (soaked), scutched (beaten), hackled (combed) and then woven on a warp- weighted loom to produce linen. Bronze Age burnt pit and waterhole

ronze Age remains were also present Bon the lower land to the north of the cremations. Here, a large waterhole, was contemporary with a nearby trough containing burnt stones and charcoal. e complete absence of pottery or other artefacts makes it dicult to understand what the trough was for. It was probably a temporary cooking site, but it may have been used for other purposes needing heat and water.

e waterhole may have provided water for both people and livestock. It contained pollen grains, well preserved Bronze Age trough in the damp, clay sediment. At the base, in a layer containing charcoal, the pollen containing burnt stone indicated that this was a deposit of burnt grasses or cereals. Above it the pollen and wood charcoal, was dominated by oak, with lime and hazel also present. Oats and barley pollen associated with a were also present, demonstrating cultivation quite locally. is woodland horizon waterhole. Scale 1m. was dated by radiocarbon to 1500 – 1322 BC. Higher up in the prole were more light-loving species such as hazel and more grassland - with grasses, fat hen, thistles, plantains, dandelions, daisies and buttercups. is sequence shows that the clearance of woodland and the cultivation of cereals was taking place in the area from the mid second millennium BC.

Section through the waterhole, 2m deep, showing the column sample taken for pollen analysis. The sequence of local pollen assemblage zones (LPAZ) indicate progressive woodland clearance, as the LPAZ 155-3 waterhole slowly filled with sediment.

LPAZ 155-2

LPAZ 155-1

LPAZ 154-3 column sample LPAZ 154-2 for pollen grains LPAZ 154-1 Iron Age settlement

ettlement around the rim of the valley began to be established in the early Iron Age, from about 500 SBC, and may have started with a partial enclosure of the valley head by a boundary ditch. ere is wider evidence of formal division of the land in Northamptonshire starting in the early Iron Age as remnants of the wild landscape were cleared for farming and areas of earlier settlement became more crowded.

e extent and nature of the settlement is much clearer in the following century. From about 400 BC until about 100 BC the settlement was at its greatest extent, and was formed by clusters of roundhouses, shelters and enclosures constructed for dwellings, storage, managing livestock and other activities. Each cluster may have been the dwelling of an extended family, or other small group, engaged principally in mixed farming along with cras such as ironworking.

At its peak the settlement comprised around 100 circular buildings across the ve sites, of which between one third and one half are likely to have been family residences, so the settlement housed an estimated population of 250 – 400 people. is ‘multi-focal village’ had at its core an area of around 100 hectares of valley pasture. is is likely to have formed a common for grazing. Arable land presumably fringed the village on its upland side.

View from the Iron Age settlement at Nortoft Lane looking north across the clayland. The settlement clings to a gravelly ridge. A roundhouse eaves-drip gully is being excavated in the foreground. Medieval plough furrow cross the whole area DIRFT 3 Zone II

?common grazing land Small Scored Ware jar, typical of the middle Iron Age of the region

Bronze Age waterhole Nortoft Lane

previous page The scarcity of grain photo location storage pits or structures and the damp nature of the clayland, indicate that pastoral farming was the mainstay of the economy.

The size of this community is clear evidence of the success of farming and trading 00 500m here over several hundred years. N Site Map

Covert Farm

Long Dole

course of Watling Street

Crick Hotel

John Samuels Evaluation (outside DIRFT)

The Iron Age settlement as revealed by excavation The Lodge and geophysical survey. The plan shows the minimum extent of the settled area, which is of several phases but almost exclusively Iron Age in date. The large open area Roman of lowland in the middle 00 500m settlement may have been for common grazing. Iron Age farming - animals

he enclosure of grazing land in the valley gives an Bones of Iron Age cattle Tindication of the importance of animal husbandry from Crick Hotel (left) to the Iron Age farmers at Crick. Animal bones were not with post-Roman well preserved due to the naturally slightly acidic ground examples (right) conditions, but some bones of cattle, sheep, horse and pig were recovered. Cattle were predominant on all sites, although Covert Farm also showed a high proportion of horses (20%) for some of the time. e larger ditched enclosures of around 20 metres across may have been cattle corrals. Horn core from a bull Iron Age cattle and horses were small animals. Cattle were the size of the present Dexter breed and all horses were pony sized. One animal from Crick Hotel had an estimated withers height of 1.26 metres – similar to an Exmoor pony.

At Covert Farm there were fragments of ‘briquetage’ - ceramic containers used to transport salt from the brine springs of the Cheshire Plain. is is an indication of the importance of salt used for the preservation of meat, and of the range of contact maintained.

Cattle first phalanx (foot): the small Iron Age A modern Dexter bull. This small animal shows disease, breed, similar in size to Iron Age possibly foot-rot caused cattle, is popular among some by damp ground. farmers today for its hardiness, and ability to closely crop and thrive on rough pasture.

Exmoor pony and foal. Iron Age farming - cereals

lthough the village may have been designed to optimise grazing land, arable The complete upper Afarming was also important. Carbonised remains of crops and weeds were part of a ‘beehive’ recovered from all areas. e most important crop was spelt wheat, a hardy cereal sandstone quern with that became widespread in Britain at this time. A grain of spelt from a pit in the two concentric grooves carved below the rim earliest phase of farming settlement at Norto Lane was dated by radiocarbon and around the shoulder, to 510 – 370 BC. e more ancient variety of wheat – emmer – was also present, from Nortoft Lane. and barley may have been more common than appears in the record: as a free- threshing cereal, it did not require parching to separate the grain from the cha, and probably did not come in to contact with re as oen as wheat.

Cleaned grain was milled using hand-operated querns, and numerous fragments of saddle querns and rotary querns were found. Nearly all the querns were made from Millstone Grit and must have been acquired from somewhere north of the River Trent. Uniquely, the complete upper part of a decorated ‘beehive’ rotary quern was found on Norto Lane. It had been placed in the upper ll of a storage pit containing burnt grain. Similarly, at Long Dole a Part of a clay oven complete ‘saddle’ quern was found in the top of a pit at structure from Nortoft Lane, and how the oven the centre of a small structure - perhaps a shrine. may have looked.

Barley Spelt wheat Iron Age landscape

he Iron Age farming village occupied Ta landscape that was not altogether different from that of recent times. The people who farmed here from around 500 BC until the century or so before the Romans arrived can be credited with the creation of the managed fields, pasture, woods and hedges that has had such an enduring presence in the landscape. RG 3

The detail of the fragile carbonised plants give an indication of what the landscape was like. The wild seeds brought in with the harvest show that the wheatfields E 2 contained a great diversity of natural plants, including wild oats and rye- grass, brome grass, cleavers, goosefoot, buttercup, stitchwort, knotweed, red E 4 bartsia, ragged robin, campion, mustard and nightshade. The charcoal from hearths and ovens shows the local fuel was collected from woods and hedges containing oak, ash, lime, Wych elm, field maple, hazel, willow, birch, spindle, hawthorn and cherry. Wild seeds

Chaff A modern field margin sown with wild bird Grain seed mix to encourage the return of species of birds now in decline. Percentage diagrams The varied crop includes from Crick Hotel show modern varieties of grain the relative proportions and self-sown fat hen, of cereal grain, chaff and and may be very similar wild seeds from three in appearance to an enclosures. Wild seeds arable field in the Iron were as common as grain Age. in the harvested crop. Late Iron Age and Roman developments

he Iron Age village did not last into the 1st century AD except at e Lodge Twhere a new settlement was established next to the earlier one. It is likely that other farms were founded in the area at this time, but they seem to have avoided earlier settled sites. e region is known to have been a borderland between the Late Iron Age tribes of the Catuvellauni to the south-east, the Dobunni to the south-west and the Corieltauvi to the north.

ere was no direct evidence of the Roman conquest found at Crick but the strategically important road known as Watling Street was constructed through the valley by AD 60. e area lay roughly equidistant between the minor Roman towns of (near Lodge) to the south and N (near , Leicestershire) ve miles to the north. e settlement at Iron Age e Lodge lay on Settlement Watling Street and may have developed as a roadside centre throughout the Roman period.

Iron Age Settlement

Roman old field Settlement boundary Roman Anglo-Saxon Settlement Late Iron Age sunken-floored symbols on gold building coins: Catuvellauni, excavation area with an ear of barley; Dobunni with a stylised horse and Iron Age and Roman wheels or suns. Its settlements at The agricultural richness railway Lodge. There is a clear made the lowland of dislocation of settlement the British Isles an around the beginning of 0 50m attractive prize for the first century AD. the Romans. w

Anglo-Saxons and after

e discovery at e Lodge of a sunken-oored building and a pit containing Tearly Anglo-Saxon pottery is the only tangible evidence of Anglo-Saxon settlement in the area. Watling Street remained in use and was given its present name (Old English Wæcelinga Stræt – paved road of the people of Wæcel). A burial of probable Anglo-Saxon date came to light in 1947 at Covert Anglo-Saxon Farm next to Watling Street, while from Norto Lane an Anglo-Saxon spearhead from spearhead may have come from a ploughed out grave nearby. Nortoft Lane.

he wide extent of ploughing in the Middle Ages was shown by furrows on all Tsites. In several cases, the coincidence of alignment of medieval furrows and Iron Age and Roman ditches suggests that the open-eld system took account of long-lived boundaries. e curve of the shire boundary shared by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire was examined north of Norto Lane and was shown to have been originally represented by a ditch, which, while undated, may have had Roman or earlier origins.

Crick has been on a nationally important routeway since at least Roman times. It lies just north of the where the A5 (constructed by omas Telford on the line of the Roman road), the Grand Union Canal, the West Coast Mainline Railway and the pass through a narrow corridor. e Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal is the latest chapter in this long story. An Anglo-Saxon pot from a pit at The Lodge.

The sunken-floored building at The Lodge. Two large post-holes on the long axis form the main structural supports for the roof. The scale is 2m. w

Acknowledgements

he archaeological work summarised in this booklet is the result of work Tby a number of dierent archaeological organisations and individuals over a long period of time. Continuity has been provided by RPS (formerly RPS Clouston), who have managed the project throughout. e nal synthesis and publication of the site has been made possible by the support of Prologis, owners and developers of Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal since 2006.

Northamptonshire Archaeology (now MOLA Northampton) undertook the excavations at Long Dole and e Lodge in 1994-5. e former University Field Archaeology Unit excavated the large Crick Covert Farm site in 1997-8, and Foundations Archaeology the site at Crick Hotel in 1998. Cotswold Archaeology carried out excavations on the Norto Lane sites between 2006 and 2013.

e individuals involved are too numerous to mention here, but thanks are extended to particular contributors to this booklet - Philip Armitage for the study of the Iron Age cattle bones, Rob and Alison Kirk for sharing their knowledge of Dexter cattle, and Andrew Butcher for information on Environmental Stewardship crops.

An archaeological report is forthcoming in two volumes, to be published by Archaeopress, Oxford.

Excavation of Iron Age roundhouse gullies at The Lodge in 1994, looking west between the entrance terminals of one of the houses. he expansion of Daventry International Rail Freight TTerminal near Crick, Northamptonshire, led to a series of archaeological investigations that have uncovered one of the largest Iron Age settlements in the country.

is booklet describes the remarkable discoveries made over some 178 hectares of land over the last 20 years.