Acle, Norfolk
 |
Acle is today a large village c. 20km east of Norwich lying at 0-10m OD on sand overlying recent deposits. Although it is now c. 10km from the east Norfolk coast, in the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods it would have been on the edge of a wide navigable estuary which extended far inland and is now mostly occupied by the Norfolk Broads. The extent of the former marshland which developed as the land silted up and was drained is indicated by the network of drains and channels which surround the present village on the north, east and south. A settlement of Roman date underlies playing fields on the eastern margins of the present village and it has been suggested that there was a trading port here in the Roman period. The church of St Edmund contains fabric of late Anglo-Saxon or Norman date, and lies towards the south of the present village (adjacent to test pit ACL/09/08). In the centre of the village a small green may be the remains of an earlier larger open area, which would place the church on its west side. It is likely that this area is the centre of the medieval settlement, but no significant excavation has been carried out on the village against which to test this hypothesis. The village is separated from Damgate, a smaller area of settlement to the south, by low-lying marshy land, and today by the main A47 road to Great Yarmouth. Acle has seen much recent development, particularly on its north-western side, where most settlement is of twentieth century date.
Local Information Websites
2009
Ten test pits were excavated in Acle in 2009, sited widely in Acle and Damgate. No Anglo-Saxon material was found in any of the pits, and only two of the pits in Acle itself (ACL/09/08 and ACL/09/10) produced pottery of medieval date. Neither of these produced more than a couple of sherds, but one of those from ACL/09/08 was a fragment of imported stoneware first made around 1350 in Siegburg in Germany, a relatively rare find of a ware mostly imported into large British towns and ports, hinting at the role of maritime trade in the economy of medieval Acle. In contrast with the paucity of medieval pottery from Acle itself, it is notable that three of the four pits in Damgate produced medieval ceramic material (ACL/09/01, ACL/09/02 and ACL/09/03). Each of these produced a larger number of sherds than any of the pits in Acle itself. Slightly less material of later medieval date was recovered from Damgate, but in Acle the area around the church actually produced more pottery of post-fourteenth century medieval date than of high medieval date. More excavation will be needed to assess whether this is significant, although it is interesting to note that it has been suggested that Acle did not see any significant post-fourteenth century contraction.
 |
Pottery Report |
 |
Test Pit Location Map |
 |
Photographs: To view photographs from your field academy, type the following address into the address bar at the top of your browser window: http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/aca/******/ (Replace '******' with the unique six-character code you were given for your site during the field academy. Important Note: Make sure you write your code in capital letters. And don't forget the forward slash at the end of the address!). |
2010
Ten test pits were excavated in Acle in 2010, bringing the total to date to twenty. These focussed on the north of the present village, where less excavation was carried out in 2009. Two adjacent sites (ACL/10/3 and ACL/10/4) each produced several sherds of Roman pottery, hinting at the presence of a previously unknown Roman settlement of some sort on this area, more than 500m from the known Roman site immediately east of the present village. For the first time, pottery of Anglo-Saxon date was found (ACL/10/6), and although only a single sherd of Thetford Ware (in production between 850 and 1100AD) was found, this was a large sherd (20g) found in a sealed late medieval rubbish pit. It is likely that, although disturbed in antiquity, it does derive from a site nearby and therefore hints at the presence of late Anglo-Saxon settlement in the area.
More of the 2010 test pits produced pottery of high medieval date that did so in 2009, suggesting that the medieval settlement at Acle may have been predominantly in the northern part of the present village. Notably less material of later medieval date was produced, possibly hinting at a degree of contraction at this time.
|
Pottery Report |
|
Test Pit Location Map |
|
Photographs: To view photographs from your field academy, type the following address into the address bar at the top of your browser window: http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/aca/******/ (Replace '******' with the unique six-character code you were given for your site during the field academy. Important Note: Make sure you write your code in capital letters. And don't forget the forward slash at the end of the address!). |
2011
|
Pottery Report |
|
Test Pit Location Map |
|
Photographs: To view photographs from your field academy, type the following address into the address bar at the top of your browser window: http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/aca/******/ (Replace '******' with the unique six-character code you were given for your site during the field academy. Important Note: Make sure you write your code in capital letters. And don't forget the forward slash at the end of the address!). |
|
