West Mersea, Essex (NGR TM 009125)
 |
West Mersea today occupies more than 2.5 sq km of the south-western part of Mersea Island (just off Essex coast c. 8 km south of Colchester) at 3-12m OD, but the first edition Ordnance Survey map shows most of the area of the present village to be devoid of settlement, with occupation limited to the areas around the church and to the north west of the village, and a scatter of other outlying farms. A Roman tessellated pavement was revealed during recent garden landscaping, otherwise little archaeological investigation has been carried out in the village.
2006
Six test pits were dug in West Mersea in 2006, which produced no Anglo-Saxon material and a total of just five small sherds of pre-1400 AD medieval pottery. Further excavation in 2007 will seek to examine whether this dearth of Anglo-Saxon and medieval material is replicated elsewhere in West Mersea. In contrast, five of the excavated pits (the exception being WME06/4) contained pottery of mid 16th- late 18th century date.
 |
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!). |
2007
Ten new test pits were dug in West Mersea in 2007 , bringing the total to date to 16. Three of these (WME07/3, WME07/5 and WME07/9), in two separate locations, produced pottery of Bronze Age and/or Iron Age date, and three pits (WME06/1, WME07/3 and WME07/9), sited in the same two areas, contained Roman material. The area around pits WME06/1, WME07/5 and WME07/9 is known to contain a Roman mosaic-floored building, but the evidence for prehistoric activity in this area is new. As in 2006, no material dating to between the end of the Roman period and the 12th century was found in any of the pits in West Mersea. Limited quantities of pottery dating to the 13th-16th centuries were found in a total of nine of the 16 2006-7 pits, suggestive of a low level of activity over a wide, possibly geographically discontinuous, area.
|
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!). |
2008
Twenty-two test pits were excavated in West Mersea in 2008, bringing the total to date to 38. Two of these produced prehistoric pottery, and several yielded Roman material: activity in these periods seems to shift around within the central area of the present village, in a zone extending c. 500m north from the church. Two sites excavated in 2008 (WME/08/17 and WME/08/18) produced Ipswich Ware (c. 720 - 850 AD), derived in both cases from apparently undisturbed levels between 40-60cm below the surface containing no later material. It seems likely this is an area of some sort of relatively intensive activity in the eighth or ninth century and might reasonably be inferred to represent settlement. Significant quantities of Roman material were residual in WME/08/18.
As in previous excavations, no material of late Anglo-Saxon date was found in any of the test pits. In the post-Conquest period activity at West Mersea seems to have been re-established, and included the area around the church and that c. 700m inland around WME/07/5. The twelfth to fourteenth century is also the earliest date for which material has been recovered from the westernmost part of the present village (most notably in WME/08/7 and WME/08/9), suggesting that this area may have come into existence at this time, with occupants probably exploiting its shore-edge location. Only one site (WME/08/9) produced more than five sherds of pottery, however, suggesting that this apparently scattered activity at West Mersea may have been of quite low intensity. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the focus of activity appears to shift to become almost exclusively seated along the shore-edge, with activity decreasing or ceasing altogether c.100m inland from the present shoreline. Pottery from the sixteenth century (most notably from WME/08/9) includes Dutch, Spanish and German wares, suggesting that international trade was a significant element in the economy of West Mersea at this time.
April 16, 2008
|
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!). |
April 23, 2008
|
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!). |
2009
Ten test pits were excavated in West Mersea in 2009, bringing the total to forty-eight. These were sited to fill gaps not previously excavated, and also to focus on the eastern part of the present village which had seen little previous test pitting. Two test pits produced pottery of prehistoric date: to date, Bronze Age material has been derived from three pits, all in the area around WME/09/09, in the higher part of the present village further from the present coastline, and Iron Age pottery from around WME/09/03, nearer to the present shoreline, in an area which has also produced Roman pottery and is the site of the existing medieval church. The absence of any Ipswich ware, especially from WME/9/05 and WME/9/06 suggests that the middle Anglo-Saxon settlement indicated by Ipswich ware from two pits in this area in 2008 may not have been very extensive. As in earlier years, no pits produced any material of late Anglo-Saxon date. Pits WME/09/07, WME/09/08 and WME/09/10 each produced just a single sherd of pottery dating to the period between 1600-1750, and no earlier material, suggesting this area was in low-intensity use, possible as arable fields, at this time rather than settlement.
|
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 West Mersea in 2010, bringing the total to fifty-eight. These were sited to fill gaps not previously excavated, and also to focus on the northerly parts of the present village which had seen less test pitting in previous years. Somewhat unexpectedly, half of the 2010 pits produced Roman pottery, and the overall picture consequently now seems to be one of widespread activity at this date across the central and easterly part of the present settlement, with no pottery of this date retrieved from the western extent of the present village.
As in earlier years, none of the 2010 pits produced any material of late Anglo-Saxon date. The western area of the present village seems to come into intensive use for the first time in the high medieval period, at which time overall settlement was probably arranged in a dispersed pattern, both along the coast and inland. In the later medieval period settlement seems to focus more exclusively along the coastline. There is little convincing evidence for later medieval contraction, but considerable expansion in activity (as represented by pottery finds) in the post-medieval period
|
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!). |
 |
Pottery Distribution Map |