Between January 2008 and July 2009, Northamptonshire Archaeology, now
part of MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology), carried out a series of
excavations along the route of a new water pipeline being constructed by
Anglian Water Services as part of a major project to increase the supply
of water to new homes and businesses in the south-east Midlands region.
Nineteen sites were investigated, dating primarily to the Iron Age,
Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The earliest remains were a late Bronze
Age/early Iron Age pit alignment near Seaton, Rutland. The Iron Age and
Roman sites were small rural settlements comprising ditched enclosures,
the remains of roundhouses and pits. Settlements were located near
Seaton and Caldecott in Rutland and in Northamptonshire at Swinawe Barn
near Corby, Thorpe Malsor, White Hill Lodge, Great Cransley and Willows
Nursery. A Roman site near Rushton, Northamptonshire may be associated
with a villa estate. Other sites included part of a Roman field system
at Violet Lane, near Corby, and Roman cremation burials near Gretton,
Northamptonshire. The settlements mainly date from the late middle Iron
Age, 2nd century BC, through to the 4th century AD, although there was
little evidence for direct continuity of settlement between the Iron Age
and Roman periods. An Anglo-Saxon cremation cemetery dated to the late
5th century to mid-7th century AD, at Glaston, Rutland, contained 16
cremation burials deposited in decorated and plain urns along with small
assemblages of grave goods, often also burnt on the pyre, and including
a brooch, glass beads, and fragments of a bone comb and mount. Later
features generally comprised medieval and post-medieval furrows from
ridge and furrow field systems and field boundary ditches.
