Girton, Cambridgeshire
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Girton today is a large village of about 4,500 people, situated to the north-west of the city of Cambridge. It lies at c. 20m OD on gault clay overlain in places by gravel. The village today is arranged along either side of two parallel streets, Church Lane and High Street, which are oriented south-west/north-east and lie approximately 500m east of the Washpit Brook. Cambridge Road runs diagonally away from the north end of Church Lane and provides access to several smaller closes on either side. This appears to be a more recent feature of the settlement plan. To the south of the High Street, Duck End contains a number of older houses and may have previously been a separate end or hamlet: it lies more then 500m from the church. Manor Farm lies a similar distance north of the church, separated from it by areas of predominantly modern housing development.
Previous archaeological work in Girton has been of limited extent, although in 1880 a cemetery was found with at least 225 burials, including 130 cremations. This was in use from the second century AD to the early Anglo-Saxon period. This was sited close to Girton College, to the south-west of the present village. The church of St Andrew was so named by 1240 and contains herringbone masonry of 12th-century date in the lower west wall of the tower.
Local Information Websites
2009
Six test pits were excavated in Girton in 2009 by pupils from Tower Hamlets in London attending a residential HEFA course. Pottery dating to 900-1100 AD was found in GIR/10/01 and GIR/10/03 (near the church and along High Street), with material dating to the twelfth to fourteenth centuries found on these sites and also on Church Lane (GIR/10/04). Medieval pottery post-dating the fourteenth century was almost entirely absent, with only a single sherd found. Although it is impossible to make any firm inferences from with such a small number of pits excavated, it is interesting to note that historical sources also hint at the possibility of late medieval contraction, with the number of taxpayers recorded at 56 in 1327 and 196 in 1377, dropping to 45 in 1524 and just 34 in 1563. It is hoped that further test pits will be excavated in Girton in 2010.
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Pottery Report |
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Test Pit Location Map |
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2010
Five test pits were excavated in Girton in 2009 by pupils attending a residential HEFA course who stayed in the nearby university college. The 2010 test pits were sited in the south of the present village, south-east of Girton College, c. 1.5km from the parish church. They were thus is a wuite different part of the present village to the 2009 test pits. GIR/10/3, GIR/10/4 and GIR/10/5 all produced pottery of Roman date, and it is notable in this context that these pits were in gardens alongside the Roman Road from Cambridge to Godmanchester. Pits GIR/10/3 and GIR/10/4 only produced single sherds, indicating non-intensive use, but GIR/10/5 produced more than 20 sherds, clearly indicating some sort of contemporary roadside settlement in the near vicinity.
The same test pit (GIR/10/5) was also the only one excavated in 2010 to produce more than a single sherd of medieval pottery. However, with only three sherds, it is impossible to be confident whether this relates to medieval settlement nearby or less intensive use of the site. The only other find of medieval date from the 2010 pits was a single sherd of Hedingham Ware from GIR/10/2, immediately east of the college grounds. No material of later medieval date (post 14th century) was found in any of the excavated pits in 2010.
Although only a small number of pits have yet been excavated within what is today a large village, it is striking that there has been hardy any later medieval pottery found. The two areas of the village which have revealed pottery of high medieval date have both notably produced no post 14th century material at all. This supports the tentative inference previously made (Lewis 2009) that the village may have suffered serious late medieval contraction.
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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!). |
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Pottery Distribution Map |