Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 95 (2002), pp. 214-39 



Iron Age Settlement and Roman Activity at 

 Brickley Lane 3 Devizes, Wiltshire, 1999 



by Daniel Poore, Dave Thomason and Adam Brossler 1 



with contributions by Kate Atherton, Bethan Charles, Hugo Lamdin- 

 Whymark, Ruth Felling and Jane Timby 



An excavation covering three separate sites on land to the east of modern Devizes found modest evidence 

 of occupation and activity ranging from the Neolithic period to the 13th century. The principal evidence 

 was found on the northern site and included a solitary Neolithic pit containing Peterborough ware, and a 

 middle-late Iron Age farmstead, with some structural evidence and associated pits and small paddocks. 

 Close to the farmstead was a lst-2nd century AD trackway, which may have had an Iron Age predecessor. 

 Slight evidence of Anglo-Saxon activity was also recovered. Finds from the site included two iron agricultural 

 tools of Iron Age date, and a 1st century AD catapult bolt-head. The environmental samples from the Iron 

 Age features produced a large quantity of mineralised Brassica seeds. The two southern sites located parts 

 of both Roman and medieval field boundary-ditch systems. A concurrent excavation by AC archaeology on 

 Wayside Farm, south-west of Brickley Lane, found further Late Iron Age and Roman remains. This is fully 

 reported elsewhere in this volume. 



INTRODUCTION 



An archaeological excavation was undertaken by 

 Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU) on land to the 

 east of Brickley Lane, Devizes, between November 

 1999 and January 2000. The work was contracted 

 by Broadway Malyan Planning (Town Planning 

 Consultants) on behalf of the building consortium 

 of Bloor Services Ltd., Persimmon Homes Wessex 

 Ltd., and Swan Hill Homes. The excavation was 

 carried out in advance of the building of houses 

 and an access road on the site. 



PROJECT BACKGROUND 



The development site is located on the eastern 

 outskirts of Devizes on Brickley Lane (SU 0195 

 6090), and occupies an area of 16ha in total 

 (Figure l).The geology of the area is mainly Upper 



Greensand which overlies a calcareous clay turning 

 to chalk bedrock. The overlying deposits consist 

 of grey brown sandy silt colluvium which appears 

 as a slightly browner version of the natural sand 

 below. 



The works undertaken concentrated on three 

 of the four areas of potential highlighted by the 

 evaluation carried out by Thames Valley 

 Archaeological Services during the summer of 1999 

 (TVAS 1999a). Area 1 was situated at the north- 

 eastern end of Brickley Lane and occupied a low 

 crest at the base of Jump Hill (Figure 2). The land 

 slopes away to the south and to the west, with 

 marshland to the east, leading to open fields. Area 

 2 lay further south in a gently undulating arable 

 field, with Area 4 located to the west of Brickley 

 Lane in flat pasture. The TVAS designated Area 3 

 was considered to be outside the development 

 impact area and was therefore not investigated 

 further. 



1 Oxford Archaeological Unit, Janus House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES 



