Eggesford 1645: Archaeological and Landscape Investigation of the Civil War Engagement of 18 December 1645

This research investigates the documented Parliamentary attack on the Royalist cavalry position at Lord Chichester’s house, Eggesford, Devon, on 18 December 1645. Contemporary accounts identify Colonel John Okey and Parliamentary dragoons in an attack on the position, in which thirteen captives and nineteen horses were taken.Field investigation between 2024 and 2026 recorded 114 lead projectile or projectile-related objects from Thorne Field and Cott Field. After exclusion of one later rifled projectile and one probable unfired sprued ammunition loss, the controlled early-modern assemblage comprises 112 objects, of which 104 have usable recorded locations. Eighty-eight complete round balls form the principal calibre-based analytical sample. The investigation combines projectile morphology, weight, diameter, firing and impact evidence, spatial distribution, historic mapping, reconstruction of the lost Chichester house, documentary sources and military terrain analysis. The evidence indicates a persistent concentration in Thorne Field, a materially different assemblage in Cott Field, and the reconstructed house position between them. A projectile-poor area immediately beyond the house is compatible with local screening by the building.Version 1 includes the publication report, the complete object-level projectile catalogue, the reproducible round-ball classification audit, machine-readable CSV data and dataset documentation. Exact recorded Ordnance Survey grid references are retained to permit independent spatial analysis and reproduction of the published calculations.