The Anglo-Saxon Village at Chalton, Hampshire: Second Interim Report

Abstract

EXPLORATORY investigations at the Chalton Anglo-Saxon village in 1971 were followed in 1972 by a major excavation, which revealed some 8 per cent of the expected area of the settlement. A number of rectangular timber buildings were found. These, attributable to at least four phases, included small, square or oblong, post-built structures with one doorway; longer, oblong, post-built structures with two doors, set opposite one another in the long sides; a long, post-built building, with the posts set in continuous trenches; two buildings with either buttress- or verandah-posts; and one sunken-floored hut of the two-post Grubenhaus form. Some of the buildings appeared to have been grouped in threes and some were contained within post-built curtilages. In one small area there were a number of shallow pits or working-hollows. The finds, which include grass-tempered and sandy pottery, ironwork and the escutcheon or base print of a 7th-century hanging bowl, corroborate a proposed date for the settlement within the 6th and 7th centuries.