Late Bronze Age, Romano-British and Early/Middle Saxon features at Hoo St Werburgh

LATE BRONZE AGE, ROMANO-BRITISH AND EARLY /MIDDLE SAXON FEATURES AT HOO ST WERBURGH CHRIS MOORE Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Southern Water to undertake a watching brief during pipeline construction between the Hoo Wastewater Treatment Works and Whitewall Creek, 4km to the west (Fig. 1). The pipeline passed close to the southern edge of Hoo St Werburgh, an area of known Roman activity and postulated as a likely location of a documented Saxon settlement and nunnery associated with the royal estate of the kings of Mercia. In order to investigate this area of interest, a section of the pipeline easement extending for some 500m between Cockham Cottages and Vicarage Lane was stripped of topsoil under archaeological control: an intermittent watching brief was maintained elsewhere along the pipeline route. All archaeological features revealed were then excavated by hand. All posthole and pit features were half-sectioned. Sections of all linear and enclosure ditches were excavated to establish date, function and stratigraphic relationships. A programme of environmental sampling was also undertaken. The fieldwork was carried out over a two-week period in August 1999. The Cockham CottagesNicarage Lane section lies some 500m north of the present shoreline of the River Medway (TQ 7788 7164-7848 7174). The land typically lies at c. 10m OD, sloping gently south-east from Cockham Cottages to Vicarage Lane. The underlying geology comprises brickearths and Tertiary sand and gravel terrace deposits. The land was under arable cultivation prior to the stripping of the easement. ARCHAEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND The earliest finds from the area comprise two Palaeolithic hand-axes and four flint flakes found in a small gravel pit some 380m south of the church of St Werburgh, and a further hand-axe found on St Mary's 259 N °' 0 - An:llaeological feature r--, Easement L--J 50 1oom ng TQ Area A:. All features AreaB ---.., ____ _ ------------ 50m 780 781 782 783 784 B Fig. l Location of S1. te a nd Archaeo1 og,•c al Features. BRONZE AGE, ROMAN AND SAXON FEATURES AT HOO ST WERBURGH Isle in the Medway. Neolithic flints and a polished axe, together with Bronze Age tools were also found on St Mary's Isle. An Iron Age coin and silver tore were found to the south-west of Hoo St Werburgh, although the latter is now lost. Finds suggest that a Roman settlement, possibly associated with evidence of pottery manufacture recovered from what is now the intertidal zone of the Medway, existed to the south-west of Hoo St Werburgh. Roman burials and buildings were uncovered during quarrying for clay and gravel on, and in close proximity to, the pipeline route; the fabric of the twelfth-century church of St Werburgh contains reused Roman brick and tile. A document dated 664 grants land at Hoo to the monastery at Peterborough. A nunnery was subsequently founded here by Werburgh, the daughter of Wulfere, King of Mercia. Werburgh died in 700 and was canonised. In c. 741, King Ethel bard of Mercia, a cousin of St Werburgh, annexed Kent. Ethel bard founded a church dedicated to St Werburgh, and Hoo became the focus of a large estate documented as Werburgh Wic, a royal residence and prosperous town. The site was strategically important both for its proximity to the religious centre of Canterbury and as a base for the Mercian kings in Kent. In 854-5, 857 and 1017, Viking raiders wintered on Sheppey, and it is likely that Werburgh Wic would have been destroyed during this period. RESULTS Two well-defined clusters of archaeological features (Areas A and B) were encountered within the 500m section of easement between Cockham Cottages and Vicarage Lane (Fig. 1 ). The majority of the recorded features survived to a depth of less than 0.20m, suggesting extensive truncation of the archaeological deposits due to recent arable land use. The largest and most significant group of features (Area A, centred on TQ 7828 7170) lay within a 160m-long section of easement, 40m to the south of the Hoo St Werburgh Vicarage. The group consisted of thirty-one features, comprising pit and posthole clusters, boundary and/or enclosure ditches and a possible post-built structure. The second group, comprising two pits and a section of ditch (Area B, centred on TQ 7788 7164) was located some 340m further to the west, opposite Cockham Cottages. Three principal phases of activity (Fig. 2) were represented by the features and finds from Areas A and B, dating to the Late Bronze Age and the Early/Middle Saxon Period, with limited traces of intermediate Late Iron Age and Romano-British activity. In addition, medieval 261 N 0\ Late Bronze Age 1058 Area A 􀀆fJl1074 1060 +7168 7820 􀀂􀀃1 +71&8 7820 0 +7168 7820 Romano-British Area A J Early-mid Saxon Area A Late Bronze Age AreaB + 7165 nas + 7165 TT87 - - --"'--=-=-=' 0 1031 e •1026 0 0 .0 􀀁 1086 t 1089 00 -ILLj . IL Lj 10091049 - 1015 1021 ? - 0 - o--􀀋-=1..,o _ ,;;;20m 0 . . 1097• 0 Romano-British AreaB 1091/ - '3 -- - Fig. 2 Phase Plans of Areas A and B. 1042 • 0 7835 +7171 7835 +7173 7S35 + 7171 +7173 7835 7835 + 7171 BRONZE AGE, ROMAN AND SAXON FEATURES AT HOO ST WERBURGH TABLE 1. NUMBER AND WEIGHT (IN GRAMS) OF ALL FINDS LBA Rom-Brit Early/Mid Unphased Totals Saxon No. Wt No. Wt No. Wt No Wt No. Wt Bumi - 1762 - 74 - 127 - 2253 - 20077 Flint 3 CBM - - 20 2683 6 3858 34 5334 60 11875 Fired 106 2393 35 597 59 1149 24 256 224 4395 Clav Flint 47 844 - - 9 127 4 72 60 1043 LBA 439 4740 I 3 22 356 37 285 499 5382 Potterv LIA/R-B - - 12 40 21 74 3 11 36 125 Potterv S3llon - - 5 43 22 208 3 25 30 276 Potterv Later - - - - 4 7 8 71 12 78 Potterv Shell - - 4 98 48 358 3 26 55 482 Sla2 - - - - - 3015 - 41 I - 3426 activity was represented by intrusive pottery of possibly thirteenth/ fourteenth-century date recovered from Saxon contexts, and unstratified post-medieval pottery was also recovered. The finds (see Table 1) and environmental evidence are not discussed in detail here: full reports exist in the archive. Phase/: Late Bronze Age(] 100-700 BC) Late Bronze Age activity within Area A was represented by a total of nine features. At the eastern end of Area A, a shallow linear feature (1082], 1.93m in width, ran from north to south across the easement, turning slightly to the north-east at the northern edge. A small group of pits [ 1065, 1036, I 042]. the last of which was partly cut by a similarly dated pit [1040], lay less than 15m further to the west. At the western end of Area A, a substantial, amorphous feature (1074] was excavated. This shallow-sided feature, between 6-9m in width and 0.78m in depth, extended over the width of the easement and produced a substantial assemblage of pottery (Fig. 3, 1, 3, 5) together with fragments of a briquetage vessel (Fig. 4, 1-2) and perforated clay tablets. (See Appendix 1 for catalogue of illustrated finds.) The feature was cut at its western extent by a narrow, shallow linear feature [ 1060) running north-south across the width of the 263 CHRIS MOORE easement. This was in turn cut by a pit 1058. A similar pit [1045] was excavated c. Sm to the west. In Area B, two further isolated pit features [ 1086 and 1089] produced larger assemblages of pottery (Fig. 3, 4, 6) and [from 1086] further fragments of perforated clay tablets. This phase of activity is dated mainly on the basis of pottery (Table 1 ). A total of 499 sherds have been identified as Late Bronze Age, mainly on the basis of fabric type. All sherds are in flint-tempered fabrics, predominantly 'coarsewares' (fabrics FLI & FL2: see Table 2) with a small proportion of sherds attributed to a finer well-sorted flint tempered fabric (fabric FL3), which may represent a fineware element within the assemblage. Diagnostic vessel forms are scarce but include a small number of rim sherds assigned to four vessel forms including both jars and bowls, only two of which are decorated (Table 2; Fig. 3, 1-8). On the basis of fabric types and vessel forms, and the lack of decoration, this group may be placed broadly within the plainware tradition of the post-Deverel-Rimbury ceramic style, with a potential date range between the eleventh and eighth centuries BC (Barrett 1980). TABLE 2. POTTERY FABRIC TOTALS Fabric No. sherds Weight (g) Vessel forms Tvoe/(no. rims) LATE BRONZE AGE FLl 212 2076 l (l);2(J);3(2) FL.2 205 2520 I (I); 2 (2); 4 (2) FL.3 82 786 2 (I) sub-total LBA 499 5382 LATE IRON AGE/ROMANO-BRITISH FLI 5 37 Bead rim jar SHI 5 5 Greywares 18 64 Coarse oxidised 8 19 sub-total LfNRB 36 125 EARLY/MIDDLE SAXON QU400 I 49 QU401 2 39 QU402 2 14 VB400 20 133 Rounded iar VB401 4 34 VB402 I 7 sub-total Saxon 30 276 MEDIEVAL 4 7 POST-MEDIBV AL 8 71 TOTAL 577 5861 264 BRONZE AGE, ROMAN AND SAXON FEATURES AT HOO ST WERBURGH KEY TO POTTERY FABRICS Later prehistoric FLI Hard, moderately coarse, clay matrix with abundant, well sorted, sub-angular flint <2mm; sparse sub-rounded quartz 0.25mm. FL2 Hard, moderately coarse, clay matrix with sparse to moderate, fairly well sorted, sub-angular flint <5mm; sparse sub-rounded quartz