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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



The 'Sanatorium' 



h 



Fig. 2. Principal archaeological features and evaluation trenches showing ditches 1022 and 1023 



voltage cables, and a heavily disturbed subsoil. Over 

 much of the area the subsoil showed extensive 

 modern and recent disturbance, particularly an 

 extensive pattern of wheel-ruts, and contained 

 modern materials throughout. 



Archaeological deposits comprised a broad 'V- 

 shaped ditch, 1 1 columnar pits, a robber trench, 

 and isolated smaller linear features and postholes, 

 from which a large assemblage of medieval pottery 

 was recovered (Figure 2). 



A broad 'V -shaped ditch 1037, 7m wide and 

 4m deep, aligned WSW-ENE was revealed cutting 

 across the northern corner of the site. It was filled 

 with two groups of deposits: an upper group (1024 

 - 1035) of artefact-rich dumps heavily disturbed 

 by two re-cuts, 1022 and 1023; sealing largely sterile 

 primary fills 1036 (Figure 3). The re-cuts broadly 

 followed the alignment of the main ditch, although 

 1022 diverged slightly from it running more to the 

 SW. 



South of the ditch were 1 1 similar pits, each 

 roughly square and approximately two metres 

 across. They were aligned in two groups: a line of 

 four running SW-NE diverging away from ditch 

 1037, six metres at its closest point and fourteen 

 metres at furthest remove; and a more loosely 

 scattered group of seven south of that. Of the linear 

 group, 1020 was investigated in detail. This was 

 1.40m deep and containing at its base deposits of 

 dark artefact-rich loam (cf. 1004) from which 

 medieval pottery was recovered, together with an 

 iron buckle (SF1) and a piece of iron strapping 

 (SF2). Of the southern group, two were investigated 

 in detail, 1010 and 1012. Both were nearly four 

 metres deep. 1010 contained deep layers of cess 

 and silt (1003, 1006-1009) under a thick layer of 

 backfill (1005), while 1012 contained only 

 undifferentiated backfill (1011) (Figure 4) . 



South of the pit group, a square-profiled feature, 

 1014, was revealed, 0.90m wide and lm deep, 



