Prehistoric:

The few knapped flint artefacts showed no obvious concentrations or patterns in their distribution and appear to represent no more than a background scatter, indicating minor prehistoric activity in the area but certainly not suggesting occupation or any kind of intense activity on the site. There were no tools or diagnostic pieces and a general date range of Mesolithic to Bronze Age is likely. Previous archaeological finds of blade-like flakes with abraded platforms suggest probable Mesolithic or early Neolithic presence in the area.

Pot boiler stones:

The pot boiler distribution data appears to suggest clustering in a number of areas, most particularly the southern part of the area investigated. This broadly correlates with the highest point of topography locally. Without the application of scientific techniques pot boilers can only be dated by their association with other, chronologically diagnostic, artefacts. The patterning of their distribution is broadly similar to the distribution of Roman pottery, but the sample size of the latter artefact class is small and more work would be required to confirm or deny this association and, by implication, this dating.

Roman:

The few Roman pottery sherds showed slight clustering in the southern part of the investigated area, broadly in the area of densest concentration of pot boilers. Diagnostically early material included part of a rusticated greyware jar. This dating fits in with previous work that indicates 2nd century activity was present on the site. Like the previous finds the pottery was all cooking / kitchen wares, with a lack of table wares such as Samian ware or colour coated ware.

Saxon:

Pottery pre-dating the palace was mainly encountered in the vicinity of an enclosure, but was not constrained within it. These sherds include early to middle Saxon, late Saxon and Saxo-Norman pieces. The nature of the ceramics suggest occupation or sustained activities rather than single, short term, episodes of activity.

Medieval - Building stone:

The building stone the was found consisted primarily of Mansfield White sandstone. It is known that this stone type was used in the construction of the palace and it is assumed in the analysis of these results that this stone was brought to the site to construct the palace, at least originally (it may have been removed from its medieval contexts and re-used for later building construction, though the results
do not seem to support this idea). Mansfield White was used for constructing the palace buildings mainly in the form of rubble walling, and also for roof slates. There were also small quantities of Linby stone. This latter stone type seems to have been used primarily for ashlar blocks, mouldings and door and window surrounds and sculpture at the palace. Mostly present as large, inherently re-useable fragments, the blocks of this stone type were likely to have been the first to be removed for re-use elsewhere. The smaller rubble pieces of Mansfield White were likely to have been less desirable. Additionally, given that the latter is at least present in the standing ruin as the wall core, any demolition of mortared walls would likely result in many chips of this stone being left behind. A few fragments of Mansfield White stone had been burnt.

The distribution of building stone (by weight) has clear patterning. It is most common around the standing ruin but is present in quantity to the north and west of the ruin. Its southwards spread appears to broadly correlate with the location of the northernmost of the boundaries shown on the 17th century map. It appears that the northernmost 17th century boundary could represent the line of an earlier boundary that defined the edge of the stone built environment of the palace.

The Linby stone was the only building stone recovered with any fragments bearing traces of working. The fragments were too small for the original form to be determined apart from one fragment that appeared to come from the corner of an ashlar block. Chisel marks were visible on the surface of a few other small fragments. These were all located in the vicinity of the standing ruin. It was notable that very little mortar was recovered, though this may well be down to the sandy soils, which are likely to be acidic and may therefore have dissolved most of it.

Medieval - Pottery:

13th - 14th century pottery was ubiquitous, to the extent that the distribution map of this category showed no patterning and is not therefore included. Only the differences in the condition of the pottery appeared to show anything, notably that the pottery from Waterfield consisted of smaller sherds that were generally more abraded that that in Manorgarth. This supports the conclusion of earlier work that Waterfield was agricultural land in the medieval period (with pot being spread with waste as manure and broken up and abraded by ploughing). The pot in Manorgarth would therefore be waste material dropped within the palace, it is less broken up as this part of the site was not ploughed until after the medieval period.

Late medieval - post medieval:

Late medieval and early post medieval ceramics (mainly Midland Purple, Cistercian Ware and German stoneware) were encountered.

Somewhat later, from the 17th and early 18th century, Staffordshire (type) thrown slipwares with trailed slip decoration were present in the vicinity of an enclosure. Unusually, glass drinking vessel fragments were also present, including the stem of a tapering stem English drinking glass of late 17th century date, a fragment of the folded foot from another glass of late 17th - 18th century date and a small fragment from a the bowl of a drinking glass with engraved decoration of 18th century date. These pieces appear to suggest that the users of the enclosure were relatively well off.

There was surprisingly little pottery or other finds of 18th century or later date.

David Budge, 2015, Discover King John's Palace: Ploughzone Test Pitting, Page 7-12 (Unpublished document). SNT5785.