Writtle, Essex
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Writtle is a former market town lying at c. 50m OD c. 4km south-west of Chelmsford. The settlement pattern today is complex, primarily arranged around two greens: Writtle Green, which today takes a large triangular form c. 200m in length, and St John's Green, a much smaller, rectilinear area c. 80m long sited to the east of the first, with more recent development beyond these. Most of the older houses in the village lie around the periphery of these greens. The church of All Saints contains some evidence for Norman origins and is located c. 70m south of the Writtle Green. It is possible that it was originally sited on the edge of an open area, suggesting that the green may formerly have been larger than it is today. Writtle was a royal manor, and a priory or hospital was established near the church by 1230 AD as a gift of King John to the hospital of the Holy Ghost in the church of St. Mary in Saxia in Rome. More tangible surviving evidence of Writtle's royal associations take the form of the remains of a moated hunting lodge (Essex HER 18580), built by King John in 1211, which are visible north of the present village.
Local Information Websites
Heritage Writtle
Writtle Village Website
Heritage Gateway
2009
Seven test pits were excavated in Writtle in 2009, all sited in plots around the two greens. No Roman material was recovered from any of the pits, and indeed nothing was found that could definitely be dated to before the Norman Conquest. The earliest pottery found was a single sherd from a Badorf ware jug of probable tenth to twelfth century date, found in WRI/09/07 on the western edge of the triangular green. Badorf ware is very rare at sites other than ports such as Ipswich and London, and is usually otherwise only found at high-status sites with royal or ecclesiastical connections. It is likely to reflect royal interest in Writtle and it is interesting to note that this sherd predates the early thirteenth century construction of King John's Hunting Lodge. By contrast, all the excavated pits produced pottery of high medieval date (mid eleventh to mid fourteenth century). The earliest of this came from WRI/09/04, in the form of two sherds (one weighing 20g) of Essex Shelly Ware, which dates to 1050-1200 AD, contemporary with the construction of the church. Observations regarding the distribution of pottery based on such a small number of test pits must inevitably be made with considerable caution, but it was interesting to note that the test pits north of Writtle Green and west of St john's Green produced very much smaller quantities of post-fourteenth century pottery that those on the south-west of Writtle Green, hinting that this area may have been differentially affected by late medieval settlement contraction at Writtle. It will be interesting to see if this tentative observation is supported or contradicted by further test pit excavation in Writtle in 2010.
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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
Eleven test pits were excavated in Writtle in 2010 bringing the total to seventeen, focussing in particular on the area east of Writtle Green where few pits were excavated in 2009. The easternmost of the 2010 pits (WRI/10/2) produced the only find of Romano-British date, no doubt relating to the presence of Roman settlement to the east of the present village. None of the 2010 pits produced any pottery of Anglo-Saxon date, but two (WRI/10/1 and WRI/10/4) did produce several sherds of high medieval date. The former also produced a sherd of decorated medieval floor tile, presumed to be related to the nearby site of King John's Hunting Lodge.
The suggestion tentatively made previously that the area north of Writtle Green and west of St John's Green might have been more severely affected by late medieval contraction was to some extent refuted by WRI/10/9 which produced a large volume of late medieval transitional ware (26 sherds weighing 204g in total). It is intriguing that this pit was sited on the St John's Green, while others in gardens around this green produced hardly any later medieval pottery (just a single small sherd from one of the 2009 pits).
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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!). |
2012
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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!). |
