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Norton Community Archaeology Project
Following an award-winning exhibition on the history of Norton, held jointly by Letchworth Museum and the Garden City Heritage Museum in 2006, a community archaeology project was set up to explore the heritage of the village. After a series of intial meetings, it was decided to set up four separate groups, looking at archaeological data from the historic parish, historical documents, maps and pre-Graden City buildings. These groups have collected as much available data as possible and work is ongoing to collate it.
From the outset, it was intended to undertake archaeological fieldwork in the parish, including fieldwalking, measured survey, geophysics and excavation. A geophysical survey was carried out on Church Field in April 2007 around an area where it was intended to dig an excavation trench later in the year, while test pits were dug in gardens at 15 Church Lane and 90 Norton Road in June. The test pits revealed a good series of datable pottery from the middle ages through to the twentieth century, with additional Late Iron Age and Romano-British material.
The trench in Church Field under excavation in | Excavation took place in the south-western corner of Church Field during August 2007, under the overall direction of the Archaeology Officer. The trench measured 10 by 5 metres and was designed to examine the site of a barn known to have been demolished during the 1930s when Norton Road was widened. The excavation suggests that the barn was built in the seventeenth century and stood on a site that had also been used in the middle ages. There was some Romano-British material, matching that found elsewhere in the core of the village, indicating that there was settlement close by. There was also a pit of probable earlier Bronze Age date (c 2000-1200 BC). Fieldwalking took place on the field to the south of the site in September 2007. In February 2008, three test pits were dug at Caslon Way on the Grange Estate. Two were in the garden of a house where Roman pottery had been found in the 1950s and the other was on the opposite side of the road. Roman pottery was found in both gardens, with a contemporary chalk surface in one of them. |
Further test pits dug in May on Norton Road, close to the village centre, uncovered pottery and other finds dating from the tenth to sixteenth centuries. Documents showed that the site had not been ploughed since before 1406.
The Project has its own website, where the latest news and information about how to get involved can be found.
