Martin Edward. Burgh: The Iron Age and Roman Enclosure

Suffolk County Planning Department, 1988. — 94 p. — (East Anglian Archaeology 40).The Burgh enclosure is situated in south-east Suffolk, a few miles north- west of the town of Woodbridge. It is the largest Iron Age fortification in Suffolk and is the only certain Iron Age site in the county that is still visible at ground level. The bivallate enclosure is roughly rectangular and encloses an area of7 ha. It is divided into two halves by a sunken lane and is partially occupied by Burgh Church. The site has witnessed three periods of excavation: by V.B.Redstone and the Woodbridge Field Club in 1900-1901; by the late J.D.W. Treherne c. 1947-1957; and by E.A. Martin for the Department of the Environment and Suffolk County Council in 1975. This report combines the results of all three of these excavations. The earthwork was probably built in the first century BC by people using hand-made Iron Age pottery. Following a destruction horizon dated to c. AD 15-25 there is a marked increase in wheel-made 'Belgic'- style pottery, much of it showing close connections with Camulodunum (Colchester), together with a range of Gallo-Belgic imported wares. The first century AD saw the construction of an inner enclosure of about 1 ha in the north-west corner of the original earthwork. This is thought to be pre-Conquest in date, though there is a slight chance that it might be an early Roman construction. Part of this inner enclosure was deliberately flattened c. AD 60, however occupation of the site continued well into the fourth century with indications of a villa with a hypocaust and tessellated floors. In the Late Saxon period a church was built within the earthwork, an event possibly connected with the translation of the remains of St Botolph from his ruined monastery at Iken on the Suffolk coast. Finally an attempt is made to place the Burgh in the context oflron Age Suffolk as a whole and to explore the later settlement history of the area in relation to Burgh.