Archaeological dig at Yews Farm in Spalding sheds light on medieval farming
An archaeological dig has uncovered evidence of the farming practices which were once used in South Holland.
Archaeological Project Services have presented their findings of the investigation at the Yews Farm site in Spalding Road, Pinchbeck, which is earmarked to have 400 homes.
While this site did not yield the exciting finds of Roman ovens as the neighbouring Spalding Western Relief Road site, it did shed some light on the farming systems which were used around the Pinchbeck area in the medieval period.
The report, which has been lodged with South Holland District Council, states: “The recorded land partition of phase 5 into five rectangular strips each probably assigned to an individual represents a relic of the strip field system organized around the medieval village of Pinchbeck. The date of this partition coincides with a prosperity period for the village which in the 1287 had a population of over 3,000.”
It later states: “Between the 13th and the 14th centuries the area of the site was divided by five parallel boundary ditches into five rectangular plots, possible dylings (medieval strips of cultivated land which were often bordered by droves and dykes).
“This same partition has been recorded near to the site excavated for the Spalding Western Relief Road
“A possible subdivision of the north plot and a maintenance intervention of its south boundary was carried out probably in the 14th-16th century but more likely within the 14th century.
“The medieval land partition probably survived for a long period of time but in the early modern period it was superseded by a different division when, as depicted in the Upton’s map of 1843, the site area was occupied by three separated fields.
“A small segment of the former medieval boundary probably survived as the southern limit of the plot. A few years later the 1887 OS map shows that these three plots were amalgamated into a single open field.
“In the 19th-20th century at the site a linear ditch was excavated as a possible internal partition of the new parcel. Finds included sherds from Roman to postmedieval pottery with a concentration in the 12th-14th century. Other finds included fired clay, bricks, tiles, glass, metalwork, clay pipe, quern stone and worked stone and bone.
“The environmental sampling campaign of the ditches revealed a possible occupation and food processing activity in the north part of the site while in the rest of it the presence of archaeological debris was very little. Generally, the assemblage of the samples suggests an open grazed grassland with wetland areas either in the fields or within the ditches themselves which were probably seasonally or periodically water.”
Ashwood Homes commissioned the survey after being granted planning permission to build the 400 homes in 2023.
As part of this, the developer is due to pay a £792,000 contribution towards the Western Relief Road, along with a £100,000 open space contribution to Pinchbeck Parish Council and seven affordable homes in the first phase.
Archaeologists at the neighbouring Spalding Western Relief Road, unveiled in 2021 that they had discovered one of the best preserved examples of a Roman oven, known as a tannur.
