In 2008, given the absence of a secure alternative site, and in the light of the strong documentary case for the location suggested by Foss, it was felt essential that a second, independent analysis was undertaken to confirm the palaeo-environmental results in Fen Meadow. However, by this time the Fen Hole peat deposit had also been identified and so this too was included in the sampling. This final phase of palaeo-environmental work was undertaken by Bradford University, in September 2008–January 2009.¹⁰

This new investigation confirmed the Fen Meadow dating and so this site was finally and reluctantly dismissed. The sampling at Fen Hole confirmed a small, discontinuous area of silty, well-humified herbaceous peat. The samples gave a pollen sequence which, according to the radiocarbon dating, extended from the late Iron Age to the tenth century. Although this latest date was well before the fifteenth century the situation was very different to that in Fen Meadow. In Fen Hole the dated deposit came from well down in the peat sequence, because the higher levels of peat were heavily mixed and contaminated by cultivation. Thus, although there were some alluvial deposits above the peat, the dated deposit was likely to be from well before peat accumulation ended. So, Fen Hole almost certainly had continued as wetland well into the medieval period. The specialist concluded that this was probably an accumulation in a waterlogged depression which was part of a ‘seasonally flooded meadow system containing several small mire complexes …’ supporting reed swamp into the late medieval period.¹¹ There are techniques which might enable a date to be recovered from the disturbed upper peat deposit but unfortunately they were far too time consuming and expensive to be included in the funded project work at this late stage.