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Cotswold Archaeology
Building 11
Kemble Enterprise Park
Cirencester
GL7 6BQ
UK
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This collection comprises reports, images, and two post-excavation databases from evaluation (LWCB17) and excavation (LWOC18) fieldwork undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology on land west of Cheddington, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire.
An archaeological evaluation (LWCB17) was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology in November 2017 at land west of Cheddington, Buckinghamshire. Sixteen trenches were excavated. The evaluation identified a number of archaeological features which were not identified by a preceding geophysical survey. The archaeological features encountered comprised ditches, pits and a trackway that are dated to the prehistoric, Roman and post-medieval/modern periods. Evidence for possible later prehistoric activity but in particular Early Roman agricultural activity was revealed in the central part of site. The size and character of the pottery, as well as the environmental assemblages, recovered from these features suggests the presence of a contemporary settlement within close proximity. Medieval and post-medieval activity was encountered throughout the site and consisted of evidence of ridge and furrow cultivation, a trackway and associated ditch and field boundaries.
A programme of archaeological investigation (LWOC18) was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology between August and October 2018. An area of approximately 0.75ha was excavated in the centre of the development area. An archaeological earthwork survey revealed the remains of former field boundaries adjacent to Cheddington village. Excavation revealed a series of earlier field boundaries and enclosures spanning the Late Iron Age to post-medieval periods, along with evidence for human settlement, agricultural processing and industrial iron smelting during the Roman period, and agricultural processing during the Late Iron Age, medieval and post-medieval periods. In the early Roman period, the land was subdivided by a series of regular parallel field ditches, which were reoriented in the 2nd century AD and subsequently infilled with domestic and industrial debris, indicative of nearby settlement. Later, several inhumations were buried in the western corner of the excavation area; bone samples from the skeletons have yielded radiocarbon dates in the early 4th to mid 6th-century AD range. Following a hiatus between the 5th and 9th centuries, the site was re-occupied when further enclosure ditches were established, which by the late 11th to 12th century divided the site into three main areas of differing use: farm paddocks to the south-east, probably pasture land to the south-west, and possible strip cultivation to the north. Some of these boundaries were to persist into the 20th century. During the post-medieval period a large deposit of garden soil accumulated in and around the paddocks, containing a large assemblage of domestic objects consistent with midden material. There was also limited evidence for industrial activity and crop processing.