Oxoniensia 57

A paper describing the excavation of a prehistoric site in advance of the construction of a superstore. The earliest activity on the site is represented by a few finds of Mesolithic date. The main use of the site occurred in the Early to Middle Bronze Age and is represented by an occupation site and field system. There are reports on `The pottery' by Jane Timby (9--16) and `The flint' by Steve Ford (16--23). `Stone' by Isabelle Ruben (24) and `Carbonised seed remains' by John B Letts (24) are followed by a concluding discussion.

A summary of the archaeology revealed by twenty-five miles of motorway construction including occupation sites from the Neolithic to the post-medieval. Artefact scatters indicate that past landuse may have been as intensive in the Cherwell valley as in the Thames valley. The archaeological potential of six sites along the M40 route between Wendlebury and Waterstock was assessed by trial excavation: the prehistoric occupation at Merton quarry (Oxon), a DMV at Ledall (Oxon), an IA settlement at Waterstock (Oxon), and three RB or AS find spots in Buckinghamshire. Ledall and one Buckinghamshire site, as well as the Merton quarry site, would have merited further selective excavation, but the speed of motorway construction made additional archaeological work impossible. Three sites were subjected to more extensive archaeological excavation: BA barrows and a Middle Iron Age enclosure at Merton; Early Saxon occupation associated with a Roman villa at Aynho (Northants); and at Fritwell (Oxon), where no evidence for Aves Ditch was found north of Fritwell. There is a `Gazetteer of sites' (50--3).

This paper brings together the results of old and recent survey work on manor houses and parsonages in the part of Berkshire transferred to Oxfordshire in 1974, and discusses other medieval houses which resemble the manor houses in aspects of plan and construction. An introduction summarising the economic context of their construction and analysing their functional and architectural characteristics is followed by a detailed gazetteer of individual houses. They include many with one or more phases of building between the twelfth and the mid-fourteenth century, and whose early origin has only recently become apparent. Well known buildings are reinterpreted in the light of new discoveries and other hitherto unpublished sites are discussed for the first time.

Records this class of evidence in the aftermath of full site publication. The results are presented in tabular form.

Outlines development of the house from the late thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries.

Notes the discovery of a seventeenth-century sword hidden in the thatched roof of a cottage in the village. The sword is of the (somewhat incorrectly deemed) `mortuary' type, bearing a likeness of Charles I. It is thought to have been concealed during the Civil War.

Notes this discovery, which was originally possessed of nielloed decoration, and is of unusually high quality. It is dated to the late-ninth or early-tenth century.