Data from a Trial Trench Evaluation at Three Bridge Mill, Twyford, Buckinghamshire, 2021-2022 (HS2 Phase One)
High Speed Two Ltd., INFRA Archaeology, 2025. https://doi.org/10.5284/1135497. How to cite using this DOI
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Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 5012
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1135497
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
This collection comprises reports, site photographs, GIS data, site records and an archive decision record from a trial trench evaluation carried out by INFRA Archaeology between March and April 2021 at Three Bridge Mill, Twyford, Buckinghamshire.
Project Summary
The general aims of the trenching were to:
- Confirm the presence/ absence, extent and depth of any surviving archaeological remains within the Site.
- Determine the nature, date, condition, state of preservation including any preservation bias, complexity and significance of any archaeological remains.
- Determine the likely range, quality and quantity of artefactual and environmental evidence present.
- Suggest measures, if appropriate and feasible, for further archaeological investigations to mitigate identified significant impacts.
- Determine the potential for further archaeological features within the Site and confirm the extent of the remains across the Site that will require further mitigation works.
The evaluation also sought to contribute to the following GWSI: HERDS Specific Objectives:
- KC15: Can we identify regional patterns in the form and location of Late Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements across the route, and are there associated differences in landscape organisation and enclosure?
- KC18: Explore the evidence for increasing social complexity in the archaeological record in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, and to identify patterns of intra-regional and regional variation.
- KC19: The Romano-British period saw the beginning of a more established infrastructure network. Can we investigate the development of these routes, trackways and roads and the influence they had on landscape change?
- KC20: Investigate the changing nature of funerary rites in the Late Iron Age and Romano-British periods. What evidence is there that the adoption of new rites or changes in existing practices are the result of the movement of people, contact with new ideas, or even new religions?
- KC21 Assess the evidence for regional and cultural distinctiveness along the length of the route in the Romano-British period, with particular regard to the different settlement types encountered along the route.
- KC23: Identify evidence for late Roman occupation and attempt to identify any continuity in settlement patterns between the end of the Romano-British period and the Early Medieval period.
- KC47: Test and develop geophysical survey methodologies.
Re-Use Value Statement
Overall the results of the evaluation were not significant, both in terms of the general quantity and quality of the archaeological evidence detected, and in proportion to the number of geophysical anomalies targeted by the trenches (the targeted anomalies were numerous and had suggested the potential for substantial archaeology to be present).
The evidence recorded in the evaluation was overall not substantial and there is some indication that what evidence does survive is likely to have been compromised by truncation from modern ploughing. The results of this evaluation have suggested that there is low potential for further archaeological remains to be present within the vicinity of the trenches. Based on these results, no extension to the Archaeological Recording areas (a future phase of work) within the eastern part of the site (currently covered by land parcels C25101-3) is recommended.
