Northamptonshire Archaeology Volume 30 (2002)
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Middle Iron Age occupation at Mawsley New Village, Cransley Lodge, Kettering, Northamptonshire
Graham Hull and Steve Preston
A series of middle Iron Age circular structures comprising an unenclosed occupation site with at least two phases of activity, were radio-carbon dated to a period between the 4th and the 1st centuries BC. There was some evidence of metal working on the site. A similar group of features was revealed by geophysical survey within an enclosure, just to the east of the excavated site. A very small quantity of late Iron Age material was recovered from features unrelated to the occupation area, while a series of shallow linear features, cutting across the site may be of Iron Age date but are more likely the remains of medieval cultivation.
[pp. 1 - 21]

Excavation of Roman settlement at Sponne School, Towcester, 1997
Rob Atkins and Andy Chapman
Excavation prior to the erection of a telecommunications mast in the grounds of Sponne School, Towcester revealed a stratified sequence of Roman settlement beginning in the later first century AD. The site lay immediately inside the town defences, and to the east of an area investigated in 1954. The early activity comprised two phases of gullies and pits each sealed by an extensive soil horizon, suggesting that intermittent use had been followed by periods of abandonment. In the middle of the second century two parallel trenches probably represent the robbed main wall and veranda of a substantial town house. Ceramic, bone and glass finds indicate that it had been a prosperous establishment. This building was demolished in the later second century, probably in the 160s/170s when the town defences were constructed. An overlying soil horizon must have accumulated or been deposited immediately inside the tail of the defensive bank through the third and fourth centuries. There was a single early medieval pit, and the upper soil levels were of post-medieval to recent date.
[pp 21-30]

Excavations at Derngate, Northampton. 1997-2000
Jonathan Hiller, Alan Hardy and Paul Blinkhorn
The Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU) carried out a limited area excavation and watching brief on the site of the former Girls' School at Derngate, Northampton (NGR: SP 758 602), during 1997. A further watching brief was maintained on all subsequent phases of building development on the site. A clay and earth bank that formed part of the medieval city defences was excavated. Several medieval quarry pits were identified across the site: pottery from the quarry fills indicated that the pits were open in the early medieval period. Later medieval rubbish pits were cut into the infilled quarries. Medieval and post-medieval soils were recorded across the site, although no evidence was found to support the existence on the site of the late medieval grange building known as ' the Towre'. Nineteenth-century walls and garden features associated with the properties that fronted onto Derngate were also recorded.
[pp. 31 - 62]

Excavations at the Former Cantor and Silver Site, Brackley, Northamptonshire
Jon Murray
Excavations and documentary research were carried out at the former Cantor & Silver site, Brackley, Northamptonshire, during October 1999. Brackley became the second most important town in the county during the High Medieval period. The site was believed to lie within the historic core of the medieval 'new' town of Brackley, with former medieval tenement boundaries projecting into the eastern part of the site. Excavations revealed that the site was very much truncated by post-medieval activity, though sparse archaeological features dated back to the 12th/14th centuries (including features such as ditches, pits and post holes) survived. This was succeeded by the construction of two buildings during the 19th century. The historic tenement boundaries were found to have remained little changed over the last 250 years, and probably reflect the original 12th/13th century layout of plots in the expanding medieval planned town.
[pp. 63 - 82]

Brickmaking in Holy Sepulchre Parish, Northampton
Rob Atkins
There is only one area of brickworkings recorded in the Holy Sepulchre parish of Northampton and this dated from at least 1755, with production continuing to c.1925. During the middle of the 18th century, there were two separate adjacent kiln sites totalling c.10 acres, positioned in a field next to a turnpike road half way between Northampton and Kingsthorpe. The evidence points to both sites being run as a single large scale business by a brickmaker on behalf while being owned by wealthy residents of Northampton . Later 19th century owners were more often themselves brickmakers, for instance, the Johnson family who worked in all aspects of the building trade including the buying of land.

The area was the only brick kiln shown on the pre-1825 map of Northampton and the 1827 Bryant map shows it was by far the biggest workings in the Northampton area. The brick kilns are on six maps from the pre-1825 map to the 1901 map Buildings on the site are shown as sparsely distributed and short-lived structures. They are initially relatively small and rectangular but by the later 19th century they were often larger and a few were circular.

In the later 19th century the brickworking expanded from the original site to include areas adjacent to the north in Kingsthorpe Parish so that in all, four separate brick kiln owners were producing on the site. By the end of the century most of Northampton's brickmakers worked in this area but outside mass-produced bricks and the lack of new house building in Northampton from c.1890 resulted in successive kiln closures.
[pp. 83 - 100]

Notes
[pp. 101 - 144]

Archaeology in Northamptonshire
[pp. 145 - 154]