Chapter 9. The North Sea Coast
9.2 The Lower Blackwater
Travelling from the Thames estuary along the North Sea coast it would be possible to land on the foreshores of the Lower Blackwater estuary;
an area with one of the largest and most complex concentrations of cropmarks in Essex. Land pressures around the mouth of the Blackwater appear to have been intense, for permanent land divisions were established here (Figure 9.1).
Wallis and Waughman studied a zone of 200 sq km surrounding this estuary and excavation work provided an important picture of the nature of early agriculture (1998, 1). The results, derived from this intensive study, show the potential for further research (Williams and Brown 1999, 30).
Stockraising compounds are interpreted to have been first created in the Lower Blackwater by the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. By the Late Bronze Age there were strong indications of agricultural intensification with local communities exploiting the river terraces for stock grazing. Wallis and Waughman suggested that they were not self-sufficient entities but embedded in a wide-ranging and interdependent gift exchange network (1998, 212–212). This Late Bronze Age landscape may have been planned to a certain extent, with traces of field boundaries or enclosures at Slough House Farm, Chigborough Farm, Rook Hall, Tolleshunt D’Arcy and Heybridge Basin, The details on each of these sites (especially the environmental data) is discussed below.
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Slough House Farm lies 2km north east of Heybridge on gently sloping land between 5 and 10m OD. The subsoil, up to 2m thick, consists of silty gravel and patches of brickearth. The south eastern area of the site included finds of ditches, gullies and pits. Several of the latter contained hearth debris (Wallis 1998b, 14). The published report makes no mention of formal land division but the site plan in figure 11 suggests traces of a rectilinear Late Bronze Age field comprising three linear ditches. Two of these boundaries, 190 and 99, are at right angles to each other (ibid.
figure 6) and are also associated with a watering hole. The environmental analysis of this feature is revealing.
The watering hole had silted up by the close of the Bronze Age. The fills suggested oak and scrub encroachment into parts of the surrounding area suggesting abandonment by the Early Iron Age (ibid. 55). The lowest fill of the well, context 126, was waterlogged and included branches and leaf mould. Wiltshire and Murphy produced an exemplary microfossil and macrofossil analysis of the 35cm of organic material at the bottom of the feature. The waterhole had been cut 2m
through gravel into the subjacent London Clay.
Samples from the 21–35cm levels (the bottom of the waterlogged part of the feature) suggested constant disturbance caused by water extraction or trampling by stock animals. The find of a single egg of a whipworm parasite might also indicate that stock had access to the water. Wiltshire and Murphy concluded that grassland was extensive and probably heavily grazed around the waterhole (1998, 177). Samples 9–19cm (the middle of the organic part of the feature) suggested abandonment, with either oak woodland or scrub being allowed to colonise and grow on the site or that coppicing/pollarding was neglected.
The spread of ruderals including stinging nettles also suggested that land was falling into disuse.
The authors, however, noted that this neglect may relate entirely to the immediate area of the waterhole rather than the entire site since cereals continued to be processed or grown in the area to the same extent as before (ibid. 177). The upper layer, samples 1–7cm, indicated that the site had become closed and dominated by trees.
Chigborough Farm is wholly below the 5m contour and comprises poorly drained sandy loam brickearth, at best 0.3m deep and often only being a superficial covering over the gravel subsoil (Waughman 1998a, 59). At the time of publication a fenceline and rectilinear structures on the site were dated to the Neolithic/Early Bronze Age. That interpretation is questioned in chapter 14 of this book. More convincingly, Middle Bronze Age pastoralism was evident by the construction of a watering hole 645. Steps had been cut into this feature to gain access to the lower section as water levels fluctuated during the seasons. Repeated animal trampling was evident on the edges of the structure. The end of this feature is signified by the placement of a near complete Deverel-Rimbury bucket urn on the top of the waterlogged layer (ibid. 69) and it is thought that the top fill may have been a deliberate capping. The contents of the watering hole included brushwood, radiocarbon dated to 1420–970 cal. BC (HAR-1099; 2980±80 BP) and a wooden structure variously interpreted as parts of a cart, wagon or boat transom (Isserlin 1998, 168).
Wiltshire and Murphy undertook the micro and macrofossil analysis on the watering hole.
Samples were taken from the exposed lowest organic fills. The upper sample 756 and lowest 808 represented two phases of sediment accretion, but unlike Slough House Farm there was no Figure 9.1 The Chelmer and Blackwater Farming Sites.
1. Blackwater site eighteen. 2. Hill Farm, Tolleshunt D’Arcy. 3. Blackwater site three. 4. Chigborough Farm. 5. Rook Hall Farm. 6. Slough House Farm.
7. Blackwater Sailing Club, Heybridge. 8. Lofts Farm.
9. Crescent Road. 10. Howell’s Farm. 11. Bradwell.
12. Great Baddow. 13. Springfield Lyons. 14. Little Leighs. 15. Windmill Field, Broomfield. 16. Broads Green. 17. Roxwell Quarry. Site details in Tables 9.1 and 9.2
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marked vegetation changes. In each, the locality was dominated by weedy, grazed grassland and waste ground. The only significant change in the pollen spectra in the two phases was in the slight decline in grasses whilst other herbs increased.
Wiltshire and Murphy suggest that this could indicate increasing grazing pressures (1998, 178). An open landscape was evident in the area throughout the Middle Bronze Age (ibid. 194) and it is possible that this pastureland may have been exploited by the Rook Hall settlement to the north. The presumed settlement at Rook Hall was associated with Deverel-Rimbury pottery and a rectilinear field system for stock management (Wallis and Waughman 1998, 222). Several fragments of cylindrical loomweights had also been recorded from the Middle Bronze Age well at Rook Hall (Brown 1988a, 295).
In the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age phase at Chigborough Farm rectilinear enclosures were constructed. Enclosure 1 had ditched boundaries (Waughman 1998a, 75) and a possible associated well, 205. This probable stockyard was interpreted as providing a well-drained corral during seasonal waterlogging (ibid. 104). Enclosures 2
and 3 were fenced areas suggesting that drainage (and therefore cereals) was not a priority. Their size, relationship and associated fenced trackway led the excavators to draw parallels to a similar construction at Hunstanton (Bradley et al. 1993).
The narrowness of the connecting trackway and the relative sparcity of waterholes was interpreted as likely to be associated with the large scale management of sheep (Waughman 1998a, 104) or movement of small numbers of cattle, but this seems unlikely. Within enclosure 2 a small rectilinear structure 13 may have provided a possible refuge for people minding the livestock (Waughman 1998a, 104). Enclosures 2 and 3 are illustrated in Figure 9.2.
Whilst Enclosure 1 may have been earlier or later than the other stockyards, all were aligned on a broadly similar axis. The structures were likely to have been constructed during the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age with a greater probability of its being closer to the beginning of the range (Waughman 1998a, 75). The Chigborough fields shared the same alignment as the fields associated with the Deverel-Rimbury settlement at Rook Hall, and Late Bronze Age burial evidence and Figure 9.2 Chigborough Farm LBA/EIA enclosures 2 and 3. Derived from Waughman 1998a, 70. This site was located on a brickearth capped gravel terrace only a short distance away from the Blackwater estuary. The posts defining the Late Bronze Age enclosures were removed when the fields fell into disuse
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metal depositions there suggest that Rook Hall communities persisted into the Late Bronze Age. The lower land at Chigborough may have been adversely affected by rising sea levels in the Bronze Age, which might explain the virtual absence of late 2nd and early 1st millennium BC pottery (Brown 1998b, 139).
Hill Farm, Tolleshunt D’Arcy was a site investigated by P. Adkins in a watching brief during which a ditched field system thought to belong to the Bronze Age was observed (Waughman 1998b, 233). Limited information is presently available but the plan suggests a timber building within a series of linked enclosures (Adkins 1983, figure 1).
Heybridge Blackwater Sailing Club is adjacent to an upstanding mound. The gravel here was capped by a clay layer possibly the result of coastal flooding after the Bronze Age. Fourteen Late Bronze Age features were dated by pottery and artefacts; the most important for this study being two parallel ditches F252 and F283 which ran east – west (approx. 64m spacing) with two certain watering holes and two further possible wells. The prehistoric features were recorded under difficult conditions and the simplified site plan showed a number of undated ditches, which suggested further elements of a field boundary, together with an associated 7–8m diameter timber structure. Brown and Adkins concluded that the Heybridge Basin site was an unenclosed Late Bronze Age settlement with a system of east – west land divisions (1988, 248). Bone survival was poor because of the acidic gravels but identifiable fragments of cattle bone were recovered from the two wells (Brown and Adkins 1988, 247). The discovery of a finely perforated clay plaque and a possible unperforated clay loomweight were also of interest. form of Late Bronze Age aggrandised enclosure with associated extra mural settlement. It may have been supported by a primarily pastoralist economy: a conclusion reached on the basis of the environmental sampling from a waterlogged-well nearby and the absence of the earliest stages of crop-cleaning among carbonised plant remains from features within the enclosure.
The enclosure structure suggested a direct involvement in livestock. The two ditches formed
a sub-rectangular enclosure and the creation of a low mound/hedge between them would have provided an effective barrier for keeping animals inside or outside of the compound (ibid. 257).
The interior had a number of possible stock management features including a fence line (ibid.
260). Animals temporarily housed within the enclosure may have been associated with feasting activities in the compound (ibid. 296). The Lofts Farm location would have enabled the community to exploit the grassland of the surrounding gravel terrace, as well as the pasture of the salt marshes fringing the Blackwater estuary (Brown 1988a, 295). The economy of the Lofts Farm area in the Late Bronze Age may have been strongly pastoral but the cereal evidence also demonstrated that the principal crops of the later first millennium BC (spelt, emmer, wheat barley and beans) were already being cultivated in this area (Murphy 1988, 283).