Iron Age/Roman cropmark enclosure, Salford Priors

Description of this historic site

The site of a large ditched enclosure which is visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs. Inside the enclosure are the remains of a round house, pit cluster and a short ditch, all dating to the Iron Age. The eastern part of the enclosure was annexed in the Roman period. It is located 1km south west of Broom.

Notes about this historic site

2 A rectangular enclosure and two sides of a second possible enclosure show on air photographs.
3 Evaluation of the site in advance of the A435 Norton Lenchwick Bypass work found what is likely to be an extension of the cropmark; there was too little evidence to determine whether it was Iron Age or Romano British.
4 Geophysical survey failed to locate the eastern part of the postulated rectangular enclosure, although two possible pit-like anomalies were detected.
5 Late Iron Age/early Roman site, not thought to continue into the 2nd to 4th centuries. The earlier settlement site seemed to be overlaid by a Roman field system.
6 Excavations of the northern enclosure showed it to be Iron Age in date. No evidence for an associated bank or rampart inside the ditch was found. There are indications of an elaborate gateway structure on the eastern side. Inside the enclosure are the remains of a round house, pit groups and a ditch from the Iron Age. The eastern part of the enclosure was annexed in the Roman period.
8 Dating of the site revised to Iron Age to Romano British.
9 Entries nos <3 - 7> refer to features found on the line of the A435 Bypass, see MWA 7457.
10 Final fieldwork at the quarry took place in 2000, extraction phase 9. It uncovered a large Iron Age ditched enclosure. Stone packed postholes on its eastern side indicated an elaborate gateway structure. Evidence of a round house came from an extended banana gully, and dating was established from pottery from this gully and from a ditch and pits from the northeastern edge of the enclosure. An annex was identified on the eastern side which had been added in the Romano British period.
11 Enclosures and ditches appearing on aerial photographs as crop marks were mapped as part of the English Heritage National Mapping Project.

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