Archaeology
This site was first found by aerial photography in 1990. It showed two ditches c35m apart (115 feet) inscribing a rough D shape that had been cut through by the A562 road. The original size of the farmstead enclosure was probably about 130m by c100m (427x328 feet, although this is very difficult to be sure of because so much of it has been destroyed. This was excavated as part of the rescue excavations in advance of the construction of the A5300 link road from the M57/M62 junction south of Prescot to the Liverpool-Runcorn A562 road.
The ditches represent the outer boundary of a farmstead which radiocarbon dating shows was in use between c400-50 BC, or the mid to late Iron Age. The excavation trench was not very wide and therefore only small parts of former buildings were excavated. However, we know that there were structures spread across most of the interior along with small gully boundaries and pits. Some of the structures had evidence of iron work taking place on the site from small particles of slag in samples taken from ditches and pits.
Drawing of the double ditch system enclosing the Iron Age farmstead.
The southern side has been lost to the construction of the main road.
The main evidence however came from the main ditch. The inner ditch was 3 metres deep and 8 metres wide (9.9x26.3 feet). This suggests that this was a very prestigious site which would have had a large earthen bank in front of the ditch. It may have belonged to a very important local chieftain. The outer ditch was much smaller and was probably constructed to corralled cattle between the two ditch circuits. Cattle may have been an important sign of status and wealth in the Iron Age.
The ditch also provided much evidence of the environment around the site. Cattle and pig bones were found. Insect evidence showed that the site was probably abandoned in the late Iron Age and was reoccupied perhaps within a hundred years or so (in the Romano-British period). Pollen evidence shows that even though the site relied heavily on cattle farming, there was still a lot of woodland in the vicinity.
A number of finds were also thrown into the ditch, probably at the time it was abandoned. One of these was a wooden plinth, possibly for a statue of a local god made from oak. It was radiocarbon dated to 1000-800 B C. It may have been an important heirloom that had been handed down over many generations. It suffered from woodworm and so had been kept inside. We tried to get an exact date from dendrochronolgy (i.e. matching the pattern of growth rings on the tree from which it was made with dated patterns from wooden artefacts elsewhere in the north). However, it had only 60 rings and therefore not enough to get a match. Pottery of the Iron Age and Romano-British periods also came from the ditch.
The wooden plinth from the inner ditch. Dated to about 800-1000 BC.