Barton Road Car Park, Ely, Cambridgeshire

Between 7th and 9th November 2016, Oxford Archaeology East (OA East) carried out an archaeological evaluation at Barton Road Car Park, Ely, Cambridgeshire. The area evaluated covered approximately 0.19 hectares and lay within the historic city of Ely. Two evaluation trenches (14m x 2m and 24m x 2m) were opened within the development area.
The evaluation identified the presence of archaeological remains of both uncertain and medieval date. A substantial boundary ditch in Trench 2 is possibly of Roman or Early-Middle Saxon origin, the presence of which may prove to be a significant discovery within this part of Ely. A buried soil in Trench 1 contained small, abraded early-high medieval pottery sherds, animal bone fragments (predominantly of pig) and a moderate assemblage of charred wheat grains. This soil was cut by a minor boundary ditch dated to the late medieval period whose fill yielded a dingle piece of iron smithing slag. A further ditch, or trench, cutting the buried soil was also recorded, and is undated. The relict topsoil and subsoil revealed in the southern part of Trench 2 provides possible evidence that the site lay within agricultural land at the edge the historic core of Ely, possibly associated with Barton Manor. Truncation relating to the construction of the current car park was encountered in both trenches.