3 p.m. Early Career Lectures from Hull and Newcastle Universities: Douglas Carr, Lesley Davidson and Zechariah Jinks-Fredrick

5 p.m. 'The excavation of a Middle Anglo-Saxon ‘King’s Enclosure’ at Conington, Cambridgeshire'
by Richard Mortimer

Located on a gravel ridge overlooking the A14 (the Roman via Devana) and overlying Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement and a possible mansio, are the remains of a 5th-7th century Anglo-Saxon settlement of sunken-featured buildings, posthole structures, pits, cess pits and wells. In the late 7th century an extensive and multi-phased ditched enclosure system was imposed on the site, characterised by Maxey ware pottery and with gated entrances through deep, defensive ditched enclosures.

The western parish boundary may have marked the boundary between two of the minor Middle Anglian Kingdoms. The name Conington equals ‘Kings Enclosure’, and it is thought to have been one of a series of planted settlements designed to aid the control and organisation of newly conquered lands. This is the first excavation of such a site and suggests construction in the late 7th century under Mercian control, and abandonment no more than a century later.