Nassinton - unidentified structure

Arcade wrote:

Nope, it's shuttered concrete. Wide boards were presumably used which give the impression of blocks.

Poured one course at a time. That should be a clue to dating it.

Arcade wrote:

There were a couple of long, shaped lumps of concrete lying nearby.

dont suppose you got any pictures of the "lumps"?

1940s-50s air photo of the site, apparently under construction:



Would be useful to see a stereoscopic set of images to ascertain if that's a low pit face directly to the south of the structure.

All the best,
PB

I pulled the relevant 2½"/mile OS sheets from the cabinet, here's the site on the 1950s edition:



Quarry-related it is then.

A working date can be found in this record of the discovery of the Anglo-Saxon Burial Ground marked on the map:

A Saxon cemetery was discovered in 1942 during gravel extraction on the west bank of the River Nene (Leeds and Atkinson 1944).
The cemetery lay approximately 800m south-east of Nassington, near the area known as Swan’s Nest.
No more than a rescue excavation was possible, however a total of 63 skeletons was recovered.

All the best,
PB

Paul, you sir are a scholar, so Al's "hunch" about an industiral site looks about right. Although I am surprised there seems no evidence of extraction from the current pathfinder sheet I would have thought a water filled pit given its proximity to the Nene?

There are a lot of these small quarries along the valley, on the sides just above the flood plain.
They wouldn't need to be very deep, so probably wouldn't break onto the water table.

TTFN,
PB

Thanks Paul, mystery solved.
It must have been very shallow excavation though.
Slightly disappointed to find out that it isn't a lost AA battery or similar, but glad we got to the bottom of it...