More information : TA 097113. Kirmington. The site of a large and extensive Iron Age and Roman settlement. Irregular roads and trackways, often flanked by ditches, are linked to a series of enclosures among which can be seen the outlines of rectangular buildings of 'strip' type, possibly of timber, perhaps of stone with robber trenches marking the lines of the walls. The most prominent feature of the site is the double-ditched enclosure which lies in the centre and bears little relationship to the roads. This is so similar to the plan of a Roman fort that it must be of Roman date and defensive. Whether it is a fort of the Flavian or Neronian period, or a later defensive earthwork, cannot as yet be determined. Roman coin hoard found in this area in 1960 (TA 01 SE 7). (Not visible on RAF air photographs 1947).(1) Air-photographs have gradually enabled the outlines to be drawn of a complex pattern of cropmarks (see illustration), the most prominent of which show the NW angle of the double ditches of a large four-sided enclosure. The E. and S. sides can only be traced with difficulty, and the SE corner lies under the perimeter track of the wartime air-field; but enough can be seen to indicate that the area within the ditches covered c. 8 1/2 acres (3.5ha). The double-ditches, which are sufficiently large and regular to be described as defences, occupy part of an area covered by the irregularly planned roads and enclosures of a settlement. Some of these roads apparently cross the defences in various places. Many small enclosures are visible and the drawing greatly understates the complications of these enclosure ditches, which were probably recut many times. The interpretation of the plan must be a matter for conjecture, as study of the photographs does not make it clear whether the defences are earlier or later than the other cropmarks. The two carefully laid out, parallel and widely-spaced ditches, the rounded angles, the proportions and area (about 626ft square, some 9 acres), so far as these may be judged, raise the question whether this enclosure may be identified as a fort? The area covered by the cropmarks has produced many stray finds of every period from the Neolithic to the Post-Medieval. This suggests that the cropmarks of this multi-period site may include more than the Iron Age and Romano-British settlement so far suggested. (2)
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