Last updated: 30th June 2009 (R.Tabor)

Fieldwork

Dave Durkin’s Sparkford Wood field surveyed for his dissertation. There appears to be a circular structure in the north of the field which was the target for excavations in July.

Sutton Montis gradiometer survey:  In progress

Butt Close: West of the church, this has identified a south to north metalled road or track, perhaps Medieval judging by the access it appears to provide to the Priest’s House, but possibly pre-dating. There are also probable Iron Age or Romano-British enclosures.

Butt Close: Neil Tinkley carried out a small resistivity survey. The white rectangle towards the south of the plot looks like a building base (probably  modern as I  seem to remember a red-brick building around about there when I was a child; Richard Tabor pers comm.)

Great Almshouses: South west of the Church, west of New Mead.

New Mead: South of the church. There are linear and enclosure features, although most are badly obscured by ridge and furrow.

Geophysical survey at Hazelgrove, Sparkford. Probably masked by Medieval and Roman - but I suspect there’ll be archaeology undermeath!

Pit Mead: A spinal route or drove with a branch leading west to a probable enclosed industrial area masked beneath relatively deep alluvium. It will very interesting to put all the Sutton Montis results together, possibly with those from Milsoms Corner.

When the four fields are put together interesting patterns begin to emerge - although it would be useful to fill in the gaps. The major route system would appear to be late Medieval or early modern. There may be a manor site immediately south of the fork, with a route leading directly to the Priest’s House, where it appears to terminate. Hence the route appears to be later than the ridge and furrow, itself probably later than some enclosure and other linear features.

Other survey work in the study area

Hits since 23rd April 2009

Information on this page:

At the express wish of  Clare Randall, the current director of  South Somerset Archaeological Research Group and the South Cadbury Environs Project, this page will not be including latest fieldwork information.

In the circumstances SCEP should be regarded as a an independent organisation wit a responsibility for completion of the writing up of fieldwork carried out from 1992 to 2007, particular of the work carried out within the coherent sampling strategy applied from 1998 to 2007.