Excavations began at Fengate in 1971 but it was not until 1977 that I visited the site whilst excavating at Billingborough. The were contemporary but of a different character. Francis Pryor’s massive excavations revealed evidence for a large-scale field system which was designed to accommodate livestock, and was dated to the Bronze Age starting at about 1800BC.

An intensive style of animal husbandry was employed in which dryland fields were mainly occupied in winter, and in summer the flocks and herds were grazed on the lush natural water-meadows of Fenland. Bronze Age droveways for sheep, with gates leading in to them from the fields, led down into the fen. The system went out of use around 500BC as the result of increasingly wet fenland conditions.

No evidence for a similar Bronze Age field system was found at Billingborough although cattle and probably sheep grazed on the marsh. The character of the fenland is different on the Lincolnshire western fen edge. Field systems similar to Fengate have been located at Langtoft, Rectory Farm, West Deeping and Welland Bank, Deeping St James.

Evans, C., E. Beadsmoore, M. Brudenell & G. Lucas, 2009. Fengate Revisited Further Fen-edge Excavations, Bronze Age Fieldsystems & Settlement and the Wyman Abbott/Leeds Archives, Cambridge: Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

Hawkes, C.F.C., 1943. The Early Iron Age Settlement at Fengate, Peterboroughp. Archaeol J, 100, 188-223.

Pryor, F.M.M., 1974. Excavation at Fengate, Peterborough, England: The First Report, Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Archaeology Monograph.

Pryor, F.M.M., 1978. Excavation at Fengate, Peterborough, England: The Second Report, Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Archaeology Monograph.

Pryor, F.M.M., 1980. Excavation at Fengate, Peterborough, England: The Third Report, Northampton: Northamptonshire Archaeological Society Monograph.

Pryor, F.M.M., 1984. Excavation at Fengate, Peterborough, England: The Fourth Report, Northampton: Northamptonshire Archaeological Society Monograph.