Coddenham, Suffolk (NGR TM 133545)
Coddenham is a small village 10km north of Ipswich mostly lying on the east side of a small stream valley between 25 and 45m OD. The settlement today is arranged along School Road and Church Road both running along the stream valley and a third route (High Street) which leads east and steeply upwards out of the valley and the present village. The church lies c. 100m south-west of the point where these three roads meet, on the southern edge of the present settlement. Much of the housing north of HES06/6 has been built within the last 100 years. Excavation by a local group has produced substantial evidence for Iron Age and Roman activity nearby, but much less is known about the village itself.
Local Information Websites
Coddenham Village Website
Heritage Gateway
2006
10 test pits were dug in Coddenham in 2006 in the gardens of properties along Church Road and School Road. Unusually, one of the test pits (COD06/7) contained a sherd of late Iron Age pottery, while perhaps more unexpectedly, given the proximity of known Roman occupation, no Roman pottery was found in any of the excavated test pits. Coddenham also revealed the only example of early/middle Anglo-Saxon pottery from the HEFA 2006 excavations, from COD06/9, on the southern edge of the present village immediately opposite the church. Pottery of late Anglo-Saxon date was found extensively, in COD06/4, 7, 8, 9 and 10, all in the area immediately north of the present church. 11th-14th century pottery was found in this same area (with the exception of COD06/8 and the addition of COD06/1), and also in COD06/2 and 5. The latter however produced only a single sherd each and must therefore be considered unlikely to be evidence for a northward expansion of settlement in this period. In contrast with the extent of 10th-14th century pottery recovered, only two test pits (COD06/1 and 4) contained any pottery of 15th-15th century date. This could possibly be interpreted as evidence for marked contraction at this date. Further test pitting in 2007 will aim to look further at the southern part of the present village, and also along the High Street.
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Pottery Report |
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Test Pit Location Map |
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2007
Eleven test pits were excavated in Coddenham in 2007, adding to the ten excavated in 2006. Whereas investigation then focussed on the north and west of the village, most of the 2007 test pits were sited in the south and east part of the village, along the High Street.
No further ceramic material of iron age date was found in 2007. A single sherd of Romano-British greyware was recovered from COD07/3, the southernmost of the test pits excavated to date in Coddenham, but this lone small fragment (6g in weight) can in no way be interpreted as evidence of any intensive activity at this date in this area. Two 2007 test pits contained single sherds of pottery of early-middle Anglo-Saxon date: COD07/1 yielded a 9g sherd of early Saxon ware dating to 450-700AD, while COD07/2 produced a 12g sherd of Ipswich ware (720-850AD). Located either side of COD06/9 which contained both these wares, this evidence strongly suggests the presence of settlement of some kind in this area at this date. Ten sherds of Thetford ware (850-1100AD) from COD07/2 reinforced the pattern noted in 2006 indicating that this same area was the main focus of expanded activity in the later Anglo-Saxon period. A single small (3g) sherd of the same ware from COD07/8 was interpreted as most likely to represent manuring outside the late Saxon settlement. Ceramic material of twelfth to fourteenth century date is slightly more widespread than that of pre-Norman date, occurring both sides of the road past the church (COD07/4, COD07/5, COD07/6, COD07/7), but none of the 2007 pits produced more than 3 sherds of pottery this date. No pottery dating to between c. 1400 and c. 1550 was recovered from any of the pits excavated in 2007, a similar pattern to that observed in 2006 which gives weight to the suggestion that there may have been minimal activity in Coddenham in the later medieval period.
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Pottery Report |
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Test Pit Location Map |
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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!). |
2008
Nine test pits were excavated in Coddenham in 2008, bringing the total to date to thirty. New sites included two near Hall Farm, c. 600m east of the of the present village core around the church, and three at Choppins Hall, c 1km to the north of the present village centre. Excavations in 2008 confirmed patterns noted from those in 2006 and 2007, with a core of intensive early and middle Anglo-Saxon activity likely to represent settlement north-west of the church growing in size and expanding north from the ninth century to the fourteenth, with marked contraction from the late fourteenth century not reversed until the post-medieval period. One of the pits at Choppins Hall produced two sherds of Thetford ware in a context with large fragments of animal bone and a late horseshoe dating to between 1000 and 1200 AD and was tentatively interpreted as evidence that this outlying site was occupied in the later Anglo-Saxon period, and may therefore have been part of a more dispersed pattern of settlement extending up the valley north of the main settlement which may have been more nucleated in form. In contrast, the pottery earliest pottery recovered from the other outlying site, Hall Farm, dated to 1100-1400, the same as at the adjacent moated site of Ivy Farm, suggesting that this part of the settlement pattern may have been of post-Conquest origin.
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Pottery Report |
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Test Pit Location Map |
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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!). |
2009
Twelve test pits were excavated in Coddenham in 2009, bringing the total to date to forty-two. These were sited to fill in gaps in the coverage of previous HEFA CORS test pit excavations. Roman pottery was found in two pits (COD/09/04 and COD/09/05) on the extreme southern margins of the present village and in COD/09/09, on the west side of the village close to the valley bottom. Hand-made Anglo-Saxon pottery dating to c. 450 - 700 AD was found in COD/09/04, COD/09/05, suggesting that activity at this date extended further south than has previously been shown, with Ipswich ware (c. 720 - 850 AD) in COD/09/05 indicating that this settlement continued well into the middle Anglo-Saxon period. Thetford ware at COD/09/04, COD/09/06 and COD/09/09 reinforced earlier inferences of a later Anglo-Saxon settlement in the area of the present church. Both pits around Ivy Farm (COD/09/01 and COD/09/08) produced significant amounts of twelfth to fourteenth century pottery, clearly indicative of settlement here at this date. No pottery which could be firmly dated to the post fourteenth century medieval period was found in any of the pits excavated in 2009, confirming earlier indications of a severe contraction in the extent and intensity of settlement at this time. Also confirming previous observations, evidence from pits along the High Street (COD/09/02 and COD/09/03) suggested this part of the settlement is of essentially post-medieval origin.
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Pottery Report |
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Test Pit Location Map |
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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
Seven pits were excavated in Coddenham in 2010, bringing the total to date to forty-nine. None of the 2010 test pits produced any additional pottery of early or middle Anglo-Saxon date, suggesting that the early Anglo-Saxon settlement was restricted to an area no more than 100m in extent immediately around the site of the later church, with settlement in the middle Anglo-Saxon period in the same general area but limited to the zone north of the present road past the church. The majority of the 2010 test pits produced Thetford Ware of later Anglo-Saxon date, supporting the evidence for a nucleated settlement perhaps 200m long along the present road past the church, with other new areas coming into existence between the tenth and twelfth centuries, including outlying sites at Ivy Farm, Hall Farm and Choppins Hall.
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Pottery Report |
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Test Pit Location Map |
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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
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Pottery Report |
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Test Pit Location Map |
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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!). |
