Selected projects
4.19.19 The Essex cropmark enclosures project
The problems of dating and classifying cropmark enclosures on the basis of morphology alone are well known. The Essex cropmark project is designed to examine sites belonging to a class of circular enclosures generally regarded as small henge monuments. Four sites were selected for investigation at Great and Little Bentley on the Tendring Plateau, Rivenhall close to the River Blackwater, and Belchamp St Paul in the Stour valley. Each site was fieldwalked and trial trenched to obtain dating evidence during 1996 and 1997.
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On the evidence of artefact recovery two sites proved to be of prehistoric date. The Rivenhall enclosure appears to be Neolithic, and lies close to a Long Mortuary enclosure investigated in 1988. The Belchamp St Paul site is probably of Bronze Age date and likely to be a large double ditched barrow. The Belchamp and Rivenhall sites lay adjacent to a substantial river valley and small stream valley, respectively. Hand augering and trial trenching revealed deep alluvial and colluvial sequences, which were sampled for environmental evidence. This is of some significance because it demonstrates the existence of such deposits, not only in major river valleys such as the Stour at Belchamp, but also in the valleys of apparently insignificant streams such as the tributary of the Blackwater at Rivenhall. Where such valley deposits have been examined in the past they have generally been revealed as a result of road, bridge, or other construction, and so have not necessarily been closely related to archaeological sites. By contrast, the two sequences examined as part of this project were targeted precisely because of their close proximity to archaeological sites and are currently being radiocarbon dated to assess their contemporaneity with the adjacent cropmarks.
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Both the Great and Little Bentley enclosures produced pottery indicating a medieval twelfth thirteenth century date and appear to be windmill sites. Documentary sources indicate a widespread and early adoption of windmills in Essex during the medieval period, but these sources give no indication of precise locations. The results of the Cropmark Enclosures project indicate that archaeological evidence can supply this information. Both the Great and Little Bentley windmills are close to, but separate from, manorial sites; although neither field walking nor cropmark evidence indicate that they were part of a larger building complexes. By contrast the recently examined early medieval windmill at Boreham is embedded in a complex of other buildings and enclosures.
The classic means of distinguishing cropmark windmills from cropmark hengiform monuments is the appearance of 'cross trees'. Both the Great and Little Bentley sites have never shown cross trees despite being photographed on a number of occasions over many years. The limited trial trenching at these two sites has not revealed any indication of their presence, nor has the more extensive excavation of a similar site at Boreham.
By contrast the late medieval early post-medieval windmill excavated at Mucking did have clear cross trees. It seems possible that, in Essex, early medieval windmills were constructed in such a way that cross trees were not sunk into the subsoil, whereas in late medieval post-medieval mills they were. Both the Great and Little Bentley sites were included in a map accompanying a recent discussion of the later Neolithic; indeed the Little Bentley cropmark has long been considered among the most likely cropmark henges in eastern England, and frequently discussed as such. This clearly indicates the necessity for careful characterisation of cropmark evidence; developing explanations of the Neolithic is difficult enough without inadvertently attempting to accommodate medieval sites.