Medieval remains at Cherry Tree Farm, Mellis Road, Wortham, Suffolk

Between 1st and the 31st March 2010, OA East conducted an excavation on c.0.16ha of land at Cherry Tree Farm, Wortham, Suffolk (TM 0846 7708) in advance of a housing development. There was no definite Saxon occupation on the site and it is likely that the excavation area lay outside of the settlement at this time. The first main archaeological phase on site dated to the late 11th century or sometime in the 12th century and comprised five plots running east to west and presumably these fronted onto Mellis Road. In around the late 13th century, the boundaries within the excavated area were further realigned with two new large east to west long-standing boundary ditches created at the northern and southern sides of the site. In between these ditches there were three shallow fragmentary ditches which may have been the remains of internal boundaries. From the mid 14th to mid 16th centuries the site was probably used only for pastoral farming as there were just four features dating to this period comprising an extremely large watering hole, a fragmentary ditch and two small pits