Chewells Lane, Haddenham, Cambridgeshire

Between the 15th and 18th of May 2017 Oxford Archaeology East carried out an archaeological evaluation on land to the east of Chewells Lane, Haddenham, Cambridgeshire (TL 4669 7559). The work represented the first phase of evaluation trenching. Parts of the site could not be evaluated due to the presence of large greenhouses, which were still in use at the time of the fieldwork.
A total of eight 30m trial trenches were excavated across the proposed development area. The earliest activity on the site was dated as Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age (c. 1100-350 BC) with features including a group of postholes and two small pits.
A buried soil was present below the subsoil in the north of the site (Trenches 3 – 8), both sealing and being cut by archaeological features. It appeared to extend across the entirety of the area covered by Trenches 3 – 8 and contained a small number of pottery sherds dating between the Late Bronze Age and Middle Iron Age.
Several Middle Iron Age features (c. 350-50 BC) were identified truncating the buried soil. The features were predominantly ditches, which formed part of a field-system in Trenches 4, 5, 6 and 8.
There was also an Early Anglo-Saxon presence on the site (c. AD 450-650) evidenced by a large pit in Trench 7 and two large circular loom-weights (one complete and one semi-complete) found in Trench 6.
In the south-western corner a series of five truncated east to west aligned furrows were identified.