EDO6594 - Holditch Court Farm North, Holditch, Thorncombe; monitoring and recording 2018

Archaeological monitoring and recording was commissioned by P and N Tolley and Sons during the groundworks for a new agricultural building near to the site of a 15th century medieval fortified manor house. Some elements of the building survived including a corner tower and a gatehouse. The tower is a scheduled monument and a Grade 1 listed building and the gatehouse is a Grade II listed building. The site concerned was located in a large pasture field to the northeast of the farm complex. Stripping of the ground to the natural subsoil across an area of c. 65m by 18.5m by mechanical excavator with toothless grading bucket was monitored. 35 archaeological features were exposed, including 17 pits or postholes and two probable ditches. The remaining features were concluded to be of natural origin such as tree growth. Two pits were dated by pottery to the Early and Late Bronze Age including Beaker pottery. Three pits, three possible postholes and one natural vegetation feature produced worked chert and flint flakes dating them as broadly prehistoric. 8 further pits/postholes were undated. A pit and ditch contained an assemblage of Early Roman pottery sherds and an iron nail. The remaining features were undated. One worked stone object was found in the same pit as the Beaker pottery and was concluded to be a broken sandstone cobble worn down as a muller and used before and after breakage. A Palaeo-Environmental Assessment was carried out revealing the presence of a variety of grain in the ‘Early Roman’ pit and charcoal and hazelnuts in the ‘Beaker pit’. Use of the site was concluded to range from the Late Mesolithic to the Roman period when it was most likely to have been a domestic settlement. There was no evidence for medieval activity.