Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 564: summary

Archaeological trial-trenching at the Church of Our Lady and St Joseph, Mill Road, Stock, Essex: September 2010
by Adam Wightman

Date report completed: September 2010
Location: the Church of Our Lady and St Joseph, Mill Road, Stock, Essex
Map reference(s): TQ 6911 9868
File size: 4,214 kb
Project type: Trial-trenching
Significance of the results: *
Keywords: post-medieval, pottery, Bagshot Pebble Bed

Summary. Evidence for activity dating to the post-medieval period was uncovered on land behind the church of Our Lady and St Joseph, Stock, Essex. Eleven features (post-holes, shallow pits and linears) dating to the 17th/18th century indicate a post-medieval presence on the periphery of the historic core of the village and some 130m from Mill Road. Post-holes and a large quantity of peg-tile were identified in the south-east corner of the excavation area. However, early map evidence does not indicate any structures in the vicinity of the excavation area. Numerous sherds of post-medieval red earthenware, most probably manufactured in the village of Stock, was recovered from ten contexts, and peg-tile with as similar fabric suggests locally produced tile was also recovered. A few pieces of overfired pottery that might be from kiln wasters, or represent part of a vessel (saggar) used when firing some of the pots in the kilns, are likely to have come from a kiln in the vicinity of the site. A sherd of flint-tempered prehistoric pot probably dating to the period of the later Bronze Age-Early Iron Age was the only evidence for activity prior to the post-medieval period. The presence of a high quantity of well-rounded flint gravels throughout the deposits attests to the location of the site over a layer of pebbles called the Bagshot Pebble Bed. This beach gravel was formed as the shoreline of a warm sea passed over Essex during the Eocene Epoch (about 55 million years ago).