Trans Bristol Gloucestershire Archaeol Soc 123

In 1997 an archaeological excavation was undertaken on the site of a proposed storage building at Guiting Manor Farm in Guiting Power. Approximately one third to one half of an Iron Age enclosure with a single, wide entrance was recorded. Although structural remains were sparse, due to the truncation of the occupation surface, pits and postholes excavated within the enclosure suggest an area of domestic occupation. The results of the work are discussed with reference to archaeological surveys undertaken elsewhere in and around Guiting Power. Separately authored reports include

During archaeological work on the route of a pipeline across the Avonmouth Levels, evidence for Romano-British activity was encountered in four locations. An extensive rural settlement was occupied during the second and mid-third centuries on the Levels' edge at Farm Lane, near Easter Compton. At Lower Knole Farm, near Almondsbury, a late-first-/second-century ditch was sealed beneath a sequence of colluvial and alluvial deposits. Further evidence for late Roman occupation was recovered in two locations at Crook's Marsh, further out on the Levels near the coast, where previous investigations have documented second- to fourth-century enclosures and field systems. A suite of techniques has been used to reconstruct past environmental conditions at Farm Lane and Crook's Marsh, and the implications of this evidence for the history of Romano-British land use on the Avonmouth Levels are discussed. Principally, it has been possible to address the extend to which the area was subject to tidal inundation in the past and the strategies that may have been used to cope with or modify the high salt-marsh environment. Separately authored reports include

Excavations in Hillesley revealed evidence of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, Late Anglo-Saxon and medieval activity. The earliest evidence was a small assemblage of flints thought likely to be part of a large background scatter brought to the surface during ploughing in the medieval period. The earliest features comprised pits and postholes but, apart from the blade of a possible Late Saxon whittle-tang knife, no datable finds were recovered from them. Early medieval activity was represented by a buried soil horizon and several shallow ditches, possibly boundaries indicating the orientation of strips within an early medieval field system. Two ditches also delineated a trackway into/from the fields. Later archaeological features, specifically a number of large pits, suggested a change of land use from arable in the late-eleventh/early-twelfth century to perhaps animal husbandry by the mid- to late-twelfth century. Separately authored reports include

Article on the history of pottery production in Westbury-on-Trym from about 1691 to 1797, including the main families involved in running the Burfield or Sugar House pottery. In common with a number of other potteries operating in the Bristol area during the eighteenth century, the output of the Burfield pottery seems to have consisted entirely of utilitarian earthenwares including sugar moulds, chimney pots, flower pots and kitchen vessels. While it mainly served a relatively local market there is evidence that pottery was traded as far as Ireland.

Article on the life of Richard Bigland, son of the antiquary Ralph Bigland, including descriptions of family memorials in Frocester churchyard.

List of the most significant documentary material acquired by the Gloucestershire Record Office during 2004--5, grouped mainly by type of organisation or business.