Archaeologists have unearthed a find before work has started building a 75-home estate and pool near John Constable's home in East Bergholt.
There will also be a new pre-school and a community hub with a swimming pool on Heath Road at land east of Constable Country Medical Centre built after the archaeological work is complete.
Colchester Archaeological Trust, who carried out the excavation, said it was "unusual" to find a kiln of this size preserved and claimed it was "significant" for the history of the village.
The kiln is believed to have dated from the 1850s. It would have been used to make pottery locally.
Christopher Lister, contracts manager at Colchester Archaeological Trust, said: "It's interesting for the industrial archaeology of the area.
"There is a local significance and the find will be important for the local history of people in East Bergholt.
"We don't find many kilns intact as they are usually dismantled and the bricks used so it's unusual. It's fairly reasonably intact and well preserved.
"Once we're done on the site we'll hand it back to [developer] Hills Building Group."
Maxine Wombwell from the East Bergholt Society said it was "wonderful news" to see more history is known about this special area in East Bergholt.
"It's amazing," she said.
She added the site was quite close to John Constable's home and his father Golding Constable's windmill.
Constable included this windmill in many of his paintings including ‘Golding’s Kitchen Garden’ 1815 painted from the gardens to the rear of East Bergholt house, across the Great Field, and over the Donkey Track to Windmill Bank.
The famous landscape artist's brother Abraham Constable is believed to have run the mill during the 1850s, when the kiln dates from.
She added: "We're particularly upset about this land being developed as it had been common land and has historical links."
Hills Building Group, the developer of the homes, school and community hub, has said before: “The development of Heath Road East Bergholt represents an exciting opportunity to provide a new extension to and additional community facilities for the existing village.
"The development will also provide high quality and much needed new housing for the area, a percentage of which will be retirement dwellings and school housing. It will positively contribute to the character and amenity of the existing village.”
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