Sandpit Pond Farm, Over, Cambridgeshire

Between late July 2020 and early October 2020 Oxford Archaeology East (OA East) carried out archaeological excavations at land north of Sandpit Pond Farm, Longstanton Road, Over, Cambridgeshire (TL 3778 6975). An area of 0.53ha was excavated in advance of residential development, targeting medieval remains revealed by previous trial trenching. Although archaeological features spanning the late prehistoric to modern periods were present across the area, medieval activity appears to have been concentrated at the northern end of the site, close to the course of Whines Lane.
Despite a background scatter of earlier prehistoric flintwork, the earliest evidence for occupation on the site dates to the Late Bronze Age and consisted of a boundary ditch and several clusters of pits, some of which may have been wells or watering holes. Associated with these was a notable assemble of Post Deverel-Rimbury Plainware pottery and evidence for bronze working, including fragments of clay mould possibly for casting a bar or ingot.
Medieval occupation of the site seems to have been established in the 11th or 12th century AD. A series of boundary ditches and small enclosures were laid out extending southwards from a lane (subsequently known as Whines Lane), some of which were retained or recut during the high medieval and late medieval periods. These are likely to have been the ‘backplots’ for properties (tofts) which fronted onto Whines Lane, within which evidence for quarrying, pit digging/rubbish disposal, agricultural and industrial activities, was revealed. Sporadic iron working appears to have been undertaken in the vicinity (albeit at a low-level), represented by smithing hearth waste distributed within the backfills of numerous pits and ditches. The substantial medieval pottery assemblage is one of the largest to have been recovered from Over and can be usefully compared with the assemblage from Fen End, a similar contemporary site recently investigated on the north-eastern edge of the village. Environmental remains, principally animal bone and charred plant material, provide evidence for mixed agricultural regimes typical of the period, with some evidence for the exploitation of local wetland (fenland) resources provided by small numbers of bones from freshwater fish including eel and pike.
During the 15th century activity at the site was in decline and by the later post-medieval period this area appears to have been largely given over to pasture with episodes of periodic flooding indicated by areas of alluvial deposits.