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THE ESSEX NATURALIST
THE EXCAVATION AREAS
1. The House Ditch Enclosure
Cutting I, laid out at right angles from the southern edge of
Square 80/78, cut the north eastern side of the house ditch at a
slightly oblique angle; however its width of 2 metres overcame
the projection angle difficulty in measuring dimensions. The
width of the ditch at the surface of the gravel was found to be
540 metres, but it should be understood that the scraped surface
of the gravel provides only an arbitrary datum. Since all over-
burden had been removed before the site was discovered it is
difficult to assess the absolute level of the surface at the time of
the original excavation of the ditch as a protective work. Its
maximum depth from existing surface was established at 1.50
metres. The section at Fig. 3 shows the strata encountered and it
can readily be seen that the ditch became choked and was recut
on two successive occasions. The light coloured silting (1) at the
deepest point is succeeded by an earthy infilling (2) with a slight
concentration of flinty gravel at its centre. The yellowish earth
(3), lying above (2) on the northern side of the section, is also
associated with this infilling. The olive grey earth (4) shows a
recutting of the already choked ditch, but as it is a comparatively
clean deposit an accumulation of organic silt, as in the case of (1),
is not suggested. It would seem possible that this represents a
ditch which was kept clean and then infilled rapidly and possibly
deliberately. Stratum (5) is the silting of a second recutting and
is succeeded by (6) which is distinguished only by a lower organic
content. Above this last level was found a homogeneous fill (7)
which had the appearance of made ground and it is felt that
material from this may have come from any part of the site, or
even from the general vicinity.
Cutting IV, parallel to the southern edge of Square 82/75 was
intended not only to section the east side of the house ditch, but to
provide information about the irregular surface marking which
obscured part of its southern angle. In fact this irregularity
proved to be nothing more than a shallow patch of earth filling
a slight dip in the gravel surface and thus left as an outlier by
machines scraping to a set level. The earth was only 0.25 metres
in depth and showed no significant archaeological level. The
width of ditch, lip to lip at the gravel surface, as exposed in
Cutting IV was 4.50 metres and its greatest depth 1.75 metres. The
stratification of the section obtained was found to resemble closely
that taken in Cutting I. Levels (1), (2) and (3) were found in
the same relationship and two recuttings can be identified in the
second section, although in Cutting IV the infilling of the second
ditch, (4) is more developed and the final filling, (7) is of lesser
extent. The latter difference is easily explained by variation in
ground level. It was also noted that the profile of the Cutting IV
section is much more rounded than that from Cutting I. A further
feature of the second excavated section was the finding of an