The archaeological sites: Upminster sites
Hunts Hill and Whitehall Wood
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These two sites lie between Upminster and Aveley, within the Thames Chase Community Forest. In the 1970s both sites were still farmland and cropmarks in the hot summer of 1976 lead to the discovery of the archaeological sites. A series of ditches marked out the sites of farms and fields of prehistoric and Roman date.
One of the earliest finds recovered from the excavations at Hunts Hill Farm was a flint arrowhead of the Early Bronze Age. In a later period someone placed it in a posthole, perhaps as a foundation deposit for a new building.
The first evidence of settlement at Hunts Hill Farm dates to the Middle Bronze Age. Archaeologists found the slight traces of their settlement: just a few pits and postholes. More is known about the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age occupation: when a series of post-built round houses was built within larger enclosures. The needs of livestock were served by several large wells and waterholes, some of which contained the remains of dung beetles and the bracken that may have been used as fodder.
These people continued an earlier tradition of burying pots or pottery in the ground. One pit, dated 1000–800 BS, contained the remains of at least 28 smashed pots.
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At the end of the Iron Age a large rectangular enclosure, about 60m by 50m, with a gateway facing north, dominated the hill. In the bottom of a ditch was a coin of King Cunobelin who ruled from Camulodunum (now Colchester).
After the Roman conquest much of Hunts Hill Farm was used as farmland. The Late Iron Age enclosure was remodelled, perhaps adapted as a stock enclosure. More fields or paddocks and animal enclosures were laid out and new wells or waterholes were dug. In their waterlogged deposits were the seeds of carrot, coriander and celery, and the head of a honey bee, one of only six known in Roman Britain.
Some of the Roman period inhabitants of the area were cremated and their ashes buried in pots, sometimes accompanied by flagons or cups. These cremations were usually set into or alongside the field ditches.
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A small Early Saxon cemetery, perhaps of a family group was also lined up alongside a late Roman field ditch. Each was buried with a small iron knife, but one person had a glass bead and another a complete pot as grave goods. A settlement of this period was found at the southern end of Hunts Hill Farm where there was a well and traces of a timber house. Early Saxon pits and timber structures were also found at Whitehall Wood.
In the early medieval period a hall-house with fields and a stave-lined well was built at Hunts Hill Farm. This was possibly part of the Domesday manor known to have been in the south part of Upminster parish.
Later the site became part of a medieval ridge-and-furrow field system. Farming continued through the 20th century, when part of the site became a garden centre, selling also fodder and hay, gas canisters and, most memorably, Christmas trees. World War I uniforms were buried in the soil to act as fertilizer and hundreds of buttons were dug up. Horses were grazed on the fields in later years. Small gymkhanas were held right up until the early 1990s leaving lots of ring-pulls from fizzy drink cans for the archaeologists to find.
Great Sunnings Farm and Manor Farm, North Ockendon
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These two sites lie east of Upminster in an area of higher gravel terrace that is now mostly used for arable farming and market gardening, though it has also been subject to intensive gravel extraction.
A few stray flint implements of the Mesolithic period from Manor Farm are the only evidence of early prehistoric people in area. Although there was a small amount of Late Bronze Age pottery at Manor Farm, most of the evidence for prehistoric settlement – including curvilinear gullies that may have marked the site of a round house – date to the Early to Middle Iron Age.
During the Later Iron Age a pair of large, roughly rectangular defensive enclosures dominated the Great Sunnings Farm site. These were linked and had steep-sided ditches about 4m wide and 2m deep. People continued to live here during the early Roman period, dumping rubbish in the old ditches and digging wells or waterholes for stock. During the 2nd century a system of long narrow fields had been laid out across the site.
At Manor Farm a small Early Roman cemetery of five cremation burials included the burial of a young woman, whose ashes were placed in a pottery flagon. Some of these people were buried with pottery jars and small flagons.
A few fragments of Early Saxon pottery show that people still lived on the Manor Farm site after the Roman period, although little is known of this period.