Land at Wick Farm, Wick Rd, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex

Between 24th and 26th March 2015, Oxford Archaeology East (OA East) carried out an archaeological evaluation on land at Wick Farm, Burnham-on-Crouch (TQ 9604 9567). A total of five trenches totalling to 180 metres were excavated, targeting anomalies seen on a geophysical survey. Two prehistoric boundary ditches, a palaeochannel, tree throw and a pit were sealed beneath varying depths of alluvial deposits. These alluvial deposit were recorded in all trenches, with a depth of 1.5m in the southernmost trenches, receding to a depth of 0.4m in the northernmost trenches. A thin deposit of Red Hill material was recorded between alluvial layers in Trench 2. No archaeological features found in the evaluation matched anomalies in the geophysical survey.
A small assemblage of early Roman briquetage was recovered from the alluvial layer in Trench 3, and a small assemblage and fired clay/briquetage was recovered from the pit, ditch and tree throw in Trench 4. A single sherd of prehistoric pottery was recovered from the ditch in Trench 5. The only ecofacts recovered from environmental samples came from the palaeochannel in Trench 1, where various preserved seeds from plants such as bramble and sour cherry were recovered. All other samples were sterile.