Data from a Borehole Investigation at St John's Covert (Colne Valley Viaduct), Denham, Buckinghamshire, 2017-2018 (HS2 Phase One)
COPA: Cotswold Oxford Pre-Construct Archaeology, Oxford Archaeology Ltd, High Speed Two Ltd., 2024. https://doi.org/10.5284/1124380. How to cite using this DOI
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This work is licensed under a The Open Government Licence (OGL).
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Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 4278
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1124380
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
This collection comprises the reports, borehole logs and photographic archive for deposit modelling with boreholes at St John’s Covert (Colne Valley Viaduct) Buckinghamshire. Work was undertaken by Cotswold Oxford Pre-Construct Archaeology (COPA) between November and December 2017. The documentary archive will be deposited with Discover Bucks Museum.
Project Summary
COPA were commissioned by Fusion to undertake deposit modelling with boreholes at HS2 2017 Construction Land Requirement at CR01410 (Colne Valley South Embankment), Buckinghamshire, henceforth known as the ‘Site’. The land is required for the construction of a temporary access road and river crossing for National Grid overhead electricity cable diversions. The fieldwork was undertaken between the 16th November and 13th December 2017.
The Project Plan established the scope, aims and contribution to the Generic Written Scheme of Investigation: Historic Environment Research and Delivery Strategy (GWSI: HERDS) objectives, techniques, deliverable and reporting mechanism for the investigation. The investigation is primarily required to provide information on the distribution, character and palaeoenvironmental potential of the floodplain deposits, and to identify any horizons within these deposits with high potential for stratified archaeological remains to be preserved in situ.
In total the Site covers an area of c 0.9 ha, immediately to the east and west of the River Colne, c 0.53km to the east of Denham (NGR TQ 0586, 1355). A preliminary desk-based deposit model of previous borehole work has not been carried out at this Site due to insufficient available data. The fieldwork focused on eight sample locations (BH01-BH08) arrayed in a single west-east aligned transect across the Site; BH01-BH05 to the west and BH06-BH08 to the east of the Colne. Each location was investigated using a window sampler, powered with a Cobra TT petrol driven breaker.
Re-Use Value Statement
The purpose of this phase of work was rapid prospection of the sub-surface sedimentary sequence in the absence of historical ground data. The results of the borehole investigation and deposit modelling demonstrate the presence of an alluvial and peat sequence preserved beneath variable thickness of made ground. This included organic peat deposits to the west of the area with potential to provide further radiocarbon dating and palaeoenvironmental proxy studies for the area. This sequence may be compared to those containing lithic scatters and other prehistoric remains found along the Colne River Valley.
Should further work be carried out at the site a sequence of monoliths from test pits or one or more purposive boreholes could be targeted on the peat sequence in the vicinity of BH01 and the organic silt in BH06, which have higher potential, for the recovery of high quality samples/cores suitable for analysis e.g. using a terrier rig. The requirement for further work should be considered in light of the likely construction impact.
