Former Milber Down Abattoir, Newton Abbot (OASIS ID: cotswold2-228612)

An archaeological evaluation and a watching brief of associated geotechnical investigations was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology in October and November 2014, at the Milber Down Abattoir site, Newton Abbot, Devon (centred on NGR: 88629 69649) The 0.77 ha site contains part of the Scheduled Monument of Milber Down Camp (Iron Age Hillfort) and Enclosure (Roman 'Small Camp'); SM No.s 1003178 and 1031242 respectively. The site had previously been investigated by local archaeologists in 1937-38, and 1964, as well as being subject to two earlier archaeological evaluations undertaken by Exeter Archaeology in 1993 and 2009, as part of an earlier planning application. The current evaluation comprised a total of seven targeted trial trenches, targeted on features highlighted by early mapping evidence (when earthworks were extant), the earlier archaeological investigations, as well as the results of a geophysical survey in 2014. The site is crossed by a length of the outermost (4th) ditch circuit of the Milber Down Hillfort as well as the west, and part of the southern, side of the known ditched Roman 'Small Camp' enclosure. The evaluation has been successful in not only investigating known archaeological features on the site, but also adding a number of previously unknown features. These include a number of ditches, pits and post-pits both 'outside' the Roman Small Camp and within the outer (4th) ditch circuit of the Milber Down Hillfort complex. These were generally recorded at depths of 0.25-0.4m depth, although archaeological features have been recorded at depths of 0.14-0.2m, even within the modern abattoir building complex (in earlier investigations). A single piece of unstratified earlier prehistoric (Neolithic/Bronze Age) worked flint was recorded. The only dated features were the Small Camp ditch and a single urned cremation burial just within the interior of the Small Camp, both of which contained mid to late 1st century AD pottery, consistent with previous investigations of the Small Camp enclosure. Although mostly undated, because of relative paucity of stratified finds, the results of the evaluation has revealed a greater complexity and successive phases of activity on the site from that previously known. Although the absolute dating of features or deposits recorded during the evaluation was poor, the stratigraphic sequences and spatial dispositions and alignments of many of the linear features in particular, do indicate successive phases of use of the Milber Hillfort outer (4th) ditch circuit, and its possible re-use in the Roman period, during the construction and use of the Small Camp enclosure. Although mostly undated, discrete features comprising post-pits, large pits and an urned cremation burial, strongly indicate settlement activity on the site, probably also of later Iron Age and Roman date.