What is known of Braiseworth’s archaeology comes almost entirely from the Suffolk Historic Environment Record (HER), from stray finds reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and from a handful of desk-based surveys. No excavation has taken place in the parish, so this is a record of chance discoveries, not of dug sites.

The Roman road

The parish’s oldest mapped feature is the line of the Roman road from Colchester to Caistor St Edmund — the Coddenham-to-Scole road, Margary route 3d, known locally as the Pye Road — which runs along the western edge of the parish, broadly beneath today’s A140. The HER records it (reference TMP 004) as crossing Braiseworth, Thornham Magna and Thornham Parva. Its precise line here rests on map, place-name and LiDAR evidence rather than on any excavated road surface.

Source: Suffolk Heritage Explorer (Suffolk Historic Environment Record), monument MSF16059 (TMP 004)

A possible early boundary — the “Grimsditch”

Running through the parish is a feature the HER calls Grimsditch (reference BRA 003): the “suggested line of a former Grimsditch continuing from Thornham Parva”, recorded as a bank and ditch and named in a thirteenth-century document (British Library, Harleian charter 52 A 49). The name is of a type often given to Saxon-period earthworks — the HER compares it to the Devil’s Dyke and the Black Ditches — but the record is cautious, marks the interpretation with a question mark, and has not been revised since 1992. It is the nearest thing the parish has to a pre-Conquest monument, as opposed to a stray find.

Source: Suffolk Heritage Explorer (Suffolk Historic Environment Record), monument MSF13120 (BRA 003), citing Scarfe, Suffolk in the Middle Ages (1986) and Williamson in Dymond & Martin, An Historical Atlas of Suffolk (1988)

Stray finds

The clearest datable Roman find is a bronze coin of AD 330–337, of the URBS ROMA “wolf and twins” type, ploughed out of the field between the two churches and recorded in the archive of Basil Brown — the self-taught archaeologist who excavated Sutton Hoo. From the medieval period comes an eleventh- or twelfth-century gaming piece, found in a Braiseworth garden but with its exact findspot now lost.

Beyond these, a keyword search of the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s national database returns 264 records associated with “Braiseworth”, spanning the Mesolithic (a flint tranchet axehead), the Neolithic (a flint arrowhead), the Bronze Age (socketed axeheads and a flint scraper), the Roman period (brooches, a silver coin, bracelets and mounts) and the early medieval period (a copper-alloy hooked tag). These are recorded to county level only, so how many lie precisely within the parish is not certain — but they show that people have been passing through and living around this ground for many thousands of years.

Source: Suffolk Heritage Explorer (Suffolk Historic Environment Record), monuments MSF7517 (BRA 013, Roman coin) and MSF34195 (BRA 008, gaming piece); Portable Antiquities Scheme, finds.org.uk (keyword search, accessed 25 August 2026)

The parish’s record in full

The public Suffolk HER holds fifteen records for Braiseworth. Alongside the road, the Grimsditch, the coin and the gaming piece, they are the two churches and churchyard (BRA 002), the lost roadside settlement of “Westwick” on the old A140 line (BRA 004), a group of nineteenth-century farmsteads recorded from maps only (BRA 016–023), and an undated human skull dredged from the River Dove (BRA 014, treated with care below).

Human remains — a note of respect

The HER records an ancient, undated human skull dredged from the River Dove near Clint Farm, on the Braiseworth–Eye boundary, and shown to the police at the time. Because it is undated and already on a public record it is mentioned here, but no precise location is given.

Source: Suffolk Heritage Explorer (Suffolk Historic Environment Record), monument MSF7518 (BRA 014)

Last verified 25 August 2026