One deposit from a trial trench contained industrial debris relating to smelting activity of either Iron Age or Saxon date. Whether this was contained within a cut, such as a hearth or furnace however, could not be determined within the trench limits. It is possible that the site of a furnace lies beyond the trench and only the debris dispersed by later activity has been recovered here.

The slag recovered from the site derived from iron working, but lacks clear diagnostic characteristics that limits the interpretation. A fragment of hearth or furnace lining is present.

A small quantity of metalworking debris (0.8kg) was recovered from a thin lens of dark greyish-brown material. The assemblage included three types of material, c. 0.5kg of ironworking slag, provisionally identified as smelting slag, one piece of furnace slag (250g) and a single piece of hearth or furnace lining. The dust residue in the sample bag was trawled with a magnet and showed that it was rich in magnetic material. The magnetic fragments appeared either to be slag or magnetized clay lining or natural material.

The smelting slag displayed flowed and liquid surfaces. The slag could be smithing slag, so three fragments were analysed by hand-held X-Ray Fluorescence. The results show that the spectra are typical of ironworking slags, but also show a small, but significant manganese content. Manganese oxide is present at varying concentrations in many iron ores and is portioned into the slag by the iron smelting technologies used in antiquity. In most cases blacksmithing slags contain no or very little manganese.

Although the preliminary examination cannot confirm the slag as iron smelting, it is probable that it derives from that process. The fragment of hearth lining is thick (15mm) and vitrified/slag attacked through the full thickness. This would suggest furnace lining rather than hearth lining which tends to be thinner, and vitrification penetration less. The furnace slag is also indicative of furnace, such slags do not normally occur on smithing sites. If it is smelting slag, the morphology of the slag would indicate an Iron Age or Saxon date for the activity. The presence of magnetic material and the furnace lining fragment suggest that the slag derives from a nearby, albeit unexcavated, feature, because otherwise these materials would probably have been separated from the slag during re-deposition of the slag.

Rebecca Goulding, Chris Sykes & Matt Wells, 2015, Newington Quarry, Misson, Nottinghamshire: Geophysical Survey and Archaeological Trial Trenching (Unpublished document). SNT5717.