#ThrowbackThursday – Hitcham, Suffolk

This #ThrowbackThursday takes us back to Hitcham, Suffolk in April-May 2021 where we conducted work in advance of the construction of six new dwellings.

The landscape of the area has a history dating back to the Romans, with features ranging from a Roman road to a medieval guildhall, but the site is perhaps most interesting due to what it tells us about medieval land management.

We uncovered a series of medieval ditches and a gully, which were most likely used as an early form of flood prevention! Water would have drained into these ditches and gully, leaving the roads and fields accessible! Those Middle Agers really thought of everything, didn’t they?

The smattering of pottery evidences that there was likely a settlement close to this location in the 12th-14th centuries. A quantity of quern stone and grains found in this excavation suggest the site was also close to an area of agricultural activity

To learn more, feel free to read CAT Report 1667: https://cat.essex.ac.uk/

Research by work experience student Matthew