This has enabled an appreciation of the development of the settlement over time and space, of the changing functions, status and economy of individual areas and the settlement as a whole, and the issues of transition, change and finally decline.
The site revealed evidence for activity from the Bronze Age through to the post-medieval period.
A centrally located shrine, with a series of strip-plots to the north and south was identified and appears that the settlement around it was remodelled in the mid 1st century AD, with the creation of a formal infrastructure of metalled roads, as well as a new temple precinct on the earlier sacred site and a reworking of the strip-plots into enclosures. To the north of the settlement area were a number of burials, pyre sites and pyre debris dumps. Early Roman cremations were added to this area slightly later. Some of the pyre sites exhibit higher-status elements, and at least one may have been ‘aristocratic’, suggesting the presence of a local elite.
The economic focus of Elms Farm appears to have been primarily agricultural while the site’s estuarine setting provided secondary economic resources. A range of manufacturing activities were also undertaken with evidence for metal-working, pottery production, bone-working, and textile manufacture.
Following PUNS report recommendations and with crucial support from Historic England, this online monograph (Volume 2 – over 600,000 words) presents the full stratigraphic descriptions and specialist reports of the Late Iron Age, Roman and Saxon material, while the companion East Anglian Archaeology print monograph (Volume 1; Atkinson and Preston 2015) presents the synthetic discussion regarding the site. Underpinned with a digital archive, hosted by the Archaeology Data Service, it is hoped that all these dissemination strands will form the basis for much future research and re-interpretation.
Heybridge: A late Iron Age and Roman settlement. Excavations at Elms Farm 1993-5. Volume 2 by Mark Atkinson and Stephen J. Preston (with many contributors)