Land Adjacent to Elwes Arms, Great Billing, Northamptonshire Archaeological Evaluation Report

The Oxford Archaeological Unit carried out a field evaluation at Great Billing, Northamptonshire on land immediately north of Elwes Arms public house on behalf of Mr. J.M. Padbury. The evaluation was specifically aimed at locating Palaeolithic finds and examining any associated Pleistocene geological deposits. Two trenches were excavated, revealing a ditch which is probably a post-medieval plot boundary. A sherd of 13th century medieval pottery was recovered from a soil horizon, although this likely to be residual. Pleistocene deposits were identified and recorded in both trenches, but no Palaeolithic finds were recovered from the deposits in spite of the fact that spoil from a hand excavated test-pit was dry sieved for finds.

The composition of the Pleistocene deposits suggests they were of local origin and deposited under cold climate conditions at the margins of the ice sheet. It is likely that these deposits are of Anglian age and apart from some modification due to post-depositional freezing they have undergone little change. The hand-axe found just south of the site in 1955 had therefore probably lain upon this surface relatively undisturbed since its original deposition.