In November the museum curator was lucky enough to be part of a group that visited the archaeological dig going on opposite Loves Farm in preparation for the Wintringham Farm housing development.

Many thanks to Don Hill from the St Neots Local History Society for organising the visit and Project Manager Tom Phillips andProject Officer Pat Moan, both from Oxford Archaeology East for showing us around the site.

The excavations have revealed evidence of several Iron Age period (400 to 100BC) round houses. They often leave little evidence in the ground where they once stood but the shallow ditch that can just be seen in this photograph, shows where rainwater ran off the thatched roof of the house.

The Iron Age families who lived on the site 2,000 years ago were farmers who grew cereal crops and kept cows, sheep and pigs, and the archaeologists have found evidence of tracks and field boundaries from the Iron Age period, similar, and in some cases linked to, the tracks and boundaries that they found were the Loves farm development now stands.

The photograph above shows the excavated remains of a pond that was dug, during the Iron Age, among the fields to provide drinking water for farm animals. The sloping pathway to the pond was cobbled to allow easier access for the animals.

Fragments of Iron Age pottery have also been discovered and it is fascinating to think of the people who used the pottery and lived on the site over 2,000 years ago. This is only the first phase of archaeological excavations on the site and if there are going to be open days and site tours there will be plenty of publicity to let everyone know.