Defence Estates, Durrington, Wiltshire - Report on Archaeological Field Evaluation

Wessex Archaeology

Archaeological features were found in five of the trenches, in the north of the Site, two of these trenches were located in a paddock, the other three were located to the north of the trackway bisecting the field to the rear of the Red House. The recorded features consisted of pits and ditches primarily of Iron Age and Romano-British date.

The same area of the Site was found to contain extensive deposits of colluvium, or hillwash, that was deposited between different periods of human activity on the Site. A sondage excavated at the end of Trench 4, using a machine, revealed that the hillwash in the west of the Site extended to a depth of 1.8 m below the present ground surface. A soil horizon, man-made or post-glacial, was observed at this depth. The trenches opened to the south of the track and within the utility yard yielded no evidence for human activity on the Site other than post-medieval construction of the yard and associated buildings.

Due to the presence of the features recorded in the paddock and the northern part of the Site, the manner in which the hillwash was cut by a chronological range of features, and because further earlier phases of occupation may be ‘masked’ by the lower hillwash deposits.