The Vale of the White Horse Survey: The study of a changing landscape in the clay lowlands of southern England from prehistory to the present 9780860547235, 9781407318424

Table of contents :
Cover Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
List of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Plates
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. The Vale of the White Horse
Chapter 2. Early Prehistory
Chapter 3. Later Prehistory
Chapter 4. The Roman Period
Chapter 5. The Anglo-Saxon Period
Chapter 6. The Medieval Period
Chapter 7. The Post-Medieval Period
Chapter 8. Conclusion
Appendix I. The White Horse
Appendix II. Miscellaneous small finds from the survey
Appendix III. The chronology of post-Roman pottery recovered from the survey
Bibliography

Citation preview

The Vale of the White Horse· Survey The study of a- changing landscape in the clay lowlands of southern England from prehistory to the present

Martin Tingle

BAR British Series 218 1991

Published in 2019 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR British Series 218 The Vale of the White Horse Survey © Martin Tingle and the Publisher 1991 The author’s moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9780860547235 paperback ISBN 9781407318424 e-book DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9780860547235 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This book is available at www.barpublishing.com BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Tempvs Reparatvm in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 1991. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2019.

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PUBLISHING BAR titles are available from:

E MAIL P HONE F AX

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D edication. To Mo and with many thanks, to William T Baldwin

List

List o f

Figures

L ist o f

Tables

L ist o f

Plates

o f

Contents

Acknowledgements Chapter

1 .

The Vale o f

the White Horse

1

Chapter

2 .

Early Prehistory

1 6

Chapter

3 .

Later P rehistory

44

Chapter

4 .

The R oman P eriod

5 2

Chapter

5 .

The Anglo-Saxon P eriod

68

Chapter

6 .

The Medieval P eriod

82

Chapter

7 .

The Post-Medieval

1 00

Chapter

8 .

Conclusion

16 1 20

Period

Appendix

I .

T he White H orse

Appendix

I I.

M iscellaneous small s urvey

Appendix

I II

The c hronology o f post-Roman p ottery r ecovered f rom t he s urvey

B ibliography

f inds

f rom t he

1 24 1 26 1 28

List

Chapter 1 .1

The

location o f

F ig

1 .2

The

geology

Fig

1 .3

A geological area

Fig

1 .4

The

F ig

1 .5 1 .6

Chapter

Figures

1 .

F ig

Fig

o f

relief

o f

the Vale the Vale

section

survey area survey

area

through the Vale

and drainage

The Vale of the Project survey areas.

o f

the Vale

White

survey

s urvey

Horse

and

area Maddle

The surface coverage of each s urveyed hectare a t a s cale o f 1 4cms to 1 00 metres. 2 .

F ig

2 .1

The distribution A to D .

o f

f lint

f lakes

F ig

2 .2

The distribution hammerstones

o f

f lint

cores

F ig

2 .3

The distribution

o f

retouched tools

F ig

2 .4

The distribution o f retouched tools relation to solid geology

F ig

2 .5

The distribution

F ig

2 .6

The distribution o f f lakes, retouched tools within z one

F ig

2 .7

Soilmarks and Badbury H ill,

F ig

2 .8

Metrical Analysis o f f lint f lakes f rom the Berkshire Downs ( zone A ) and Badbury H ill ( zone D ).

F ig

2 .9

Mean

Fig

2 .10

F lake thicknesses

F ig

2 .11

The distribution

Fig

2 .12

The

F ig

2 .13

Section

o f

surface zone D .

f lake weights

l ocation

cores

o f

cores C .

f rom zones o f

the

Chapter

3 .

F ig

3 .1

The distribution o f and i ts environs

Fig

3 .2

Linear ditches

and f rom

A to D . 6 material

enclosures.

7 011.

h illforts

the

A to D .

A to D .

group

the Longcot

i n

r esults

f rom zones

Zones

a nd

z ones

survey

through enclosure

on

i n

within

within

Berkshire

Downs

the Vale

Farm

F ig

3 .3

The distribution earthworks

o f

prehistoric

pottery

Chapter

4 .

F ig

4 .1

The survey and roads

F ig

4 .2

The relationship between Roman distribution and known s ites.

F ig

4 .3

F ield

F ig

4 .4

The distribution o f and on the Downs.

F ig

4 .5

The f requency and density containing Roman pottery.

F ig

4 .6

The

F ig

4 .7

The distribution o f the principal concentrations and known s ites

area

s urveys

i n

relation

within

e stimated date

5 .

F ig

The survey area and the Upper Thames valley.

Fig

5 .2

pottery o f

the White

Roman pottery

Chapter 5 .1

to Roman towns

the Vale

range

o f o f

and

Horse

i n the Vale

hectare

squares

Roman pottery

known

Roman pottery

Saxon

s ites

The distribution of Anglo-Saxon pottery within the s urvey area.

o f

the

grass

te mpered

F ig

5 .3

The detailed distribution o f Anglo-Saxon grass tempered pottery a t the f oot o f the Downs.

F ig

5 .4

Roman pottery concentrations the Downs and i n the Vale.

F ig

5 .5

Anglo-Saxon Charter and Downs and i n the Vale.

Parish boundaries

on

the

F ig

5 .6

Anglo-Saxon burials and Parish boundaries Vale and on the Downs.

i n

the

( see

F ig

4 .7)

on

Chapter

6 .

F ig

6 .1

Medieval

F ig

6 .2

The distribution o f Medieval pottery within the s urvey area, divided i nto areas f or analysis.

F ig

6 .3

The distribution the s urvey area

F ig

6 .4

The proportion o f identifiable f abrics the Medieval pottery a ssemblage

F ig

6 .5

The distribution o f f oot o f the Downs.

settlements

o f

i n within

known

r idge

k iln

and

the

s urvey

s ites

area

s upplying

f urrow at

within the

Fig

6 .6

Chapter

The detailed distribution at the foot o f the Downs

o f

Medieval pottery

7

F ig

7 .1

The distribution o f post-medieval and f arm within the survey area

s ettlements

F ig

7 .2

The distribution the s urvey area.

pottery within

F ig

7 .3

The boundaries and crops o f the Craven Estate, c .1870.

F ig

7 .4

The distribution the s urvey area.

o f

burnt clay

Fig

7 .5

The distribution area

o f

s late within

Appendix F ig

I I.1

o f

post-medieval

I I Miscellaneous

smallfinds.

f ive

f arms

f ragments the

f rom within

s urvey

List

of

Tables

Chapter Two. Table

2 .1

The f ieldwalking l ithic a ssemblage compared with two other surveys

o f

Table

2 .2

A comparison o f the retouched tool Maddle Farm and Vale a ssemblages

f rom the

Table

2 .3

The

f lint

a ssemblage

f rom Zone A

Table

2 .4

The

f lint

a ssemblage

from Zone

Table

2 .5

The

f lint

a ssemblage

f rom Zone C

Table

2 .6

The

f lint

a ssemblage

f rom Zone

Table

2 .7

A classification retouched tools

Table

2 .8

The composition o f

Table

2 .9

The

sources

o f

o f

f lint

f lint

B

D

types

the Type cores

the Vale

utilised

for

6 a ssemblage based on

s urface cortex

Chapter Four Table 4 .1

Chronological breakdown o f pottery Farm and Vale s urveys ( Adjusted to s ize o f s urvey areas)

Table

The chronological f rom the Vale

4 .2

distribution

o f

f rom the Maddle a ccount f or the diagnostic

pottery

Chapter Six Table

6 .1

Medieval those o f

pottery densities f rom the Vale compared with the East Berks and East Hants Surveys

Table

6 .2

Medieval

pottery densities

Table

6 .3

The chronological and numerical distribution o f pottery around s ettlements in the survey Area ( excluding grass tempered ware)

Table

6 .4

Vessel

Table

6 .5

The distribution

Table

6 .6

S implified chronological pottery

f orms

within

distributed by o f

Medieval

the Vale

area f abric

types

distribution

o f

Medieval

Chapter Seven Table

7 .1

Goods carried on the i n 1 837

Berkshire

V

and Oxfordshire Canal

List

o f

o f

P lates

Plate

1 .

The Vale

the White

Plate

2 .

The

s carp

Plate

3 .

The

zone

of

Gault clay

Plate

4 .

The

z one

o f

Kimmeridge Clay

Plate

5 .

The

zone

o f

Corallian Beds

Plate

6 .

The

excavation

Plate

7 .

Details

Plate

8 .

The

Plate

9 .

Terraces on the s carp f ace o f Woolstone and Kingston Lisle

P late

1 0.

A t imber

P late

1 1.

A Chalk and Limestone

P late

1 2.

The Old

P late

1 3.

Great Coxwell

P late

1 4.

The

P late

1 5.

The remains o f near Longcot

P late

1 6.

A copy o f an e ighteenth century engraving Uffington White Horse

f ace

o f

o f

the

Horse

f rom White

Horse

Downs

within the

survey area

a t

trench o f

the

f oot

to the to the

o f

i nterior

House tithe

o f

a t

Longcot Badbury

overlooking

the

Downs

the Vale

between

a t Woolstone

a t Woolstone

U ffington

Coxwell

Berkshire

v i

H ill

7 011

barn

Great the

of

south o f

f ramed and thatched building

S chool

Downs

trench

Uffington Castle

building

the

south

r ing ditch

a f eature within the

ramparts

o f

H ill

t ithe

barn

and Wiltshire Canal o f

the

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This survey would not have been possible without the kind permission o f t he owners and administrators o f Compton Beauchamp, Berners Allsop and Coleshill and Buscot estates with the cooperation of their various tenant farmers. The survey team comprised Frances Raymond, Julia Wall, Nigel Thomas and Paul Potter, while the excavation was carried out by the author and Dave H opkins with t he permission o f t he l andowner Mr Dreyer. I am a lso greatly i ndebted to Maureen Mellor and Professor Mike F ulford who between them, i dentified a nd commented on the pottery that was recovered. David Dawson of the Oxfordshire County Museums Service was k ind enough to p rovide a permanent home for the f inds and the survey archive. I would l ike to thank the Oxford Archaeological Unit, e specially S imon Palmer, f or helping me to extract the data relating to the Medieval pottery f inds from their computer. I am also most grateful to Professors Bradley and F ulford and Doctors Astill and Musgrave who r ead and commented on various parts o f the text. Finally I would l ike to thank Andrew Lawson of the Trust for Wessex Archaeology which administered the f unding o f the project.

Martin Tingle D ept o f Archaeology R eading University Whiteknights Park Reading B erks

v i i

CHAPTER ONE THE VALE

P late

1 .

The Vale o f

OF THE WHITE

the White Horse

HORSE

f rom White

Horse

H ill

Before the Gods that made the Gods had s een their sunrise pass The White Horse o f the White Horse Vale was cut out f rom the grass". Ballad o f the White G .K. Chesterton.

1 ).

Horse.

I ntroduction

The Vale of the White Horse i s situated in north Wiltshire and south Oxfordshire between the chalk uplands of the Berkshire Downs and the ridge of Corallian sands that border the Upper Thames. I ts name derives from the stylised outline o f a horse,

1

SURVEY TRANSECT

F ig

1 .1.

The

l ocation o f

:

CHALK UPLANDS

the Vale

s urvey a rea

f ifty six metres in length, which i s carved into the chalk h illside b elow U ffington Castle. Little i s k nown o f t he f igure's origins except that it was referred to in documents of the twelfth century ( See Appendix 1 ). The Horse was popularised during the nineteenth century through the writings o f Thomas H ughes ( 1822-1896) and f ormed the central image in a n u nusually t urgid s even volume epic poem by G .K Chesterton. More r ecently, it has been associated with Ley Lines, Earth Magic and even i dentified a s a guiding s ignal to a irborne a liens, a v iew which was shared by the War Ministry who, i n 1 940, had i t t urfed over f or the duration o f hostilities ( Bord, J & Bord, C . 1 974, 1 72: Marples, M . 1 981, 6 5). The Vale to which i t g ives i ts name i s a f lat, l ow l ying a nd i n p laces r ather i ll defined c lay basin s ituated b etween t he t owns

2

CHAL K GAULT CLAY K I M MER IDGE CLAY LO WER GREENSAND CORALL IAN BEDS OXFORD CLAY UPPER GREENSAND

1 K ILO METRE

F ig

1 .2

The

geology o f

the Vale

survey

3

area

4

o f Swindon i n the west and Oxford i n the east ( Fig 1 .1). I t i s approximately thirty f ive k ilometres i n l ength and between s even and twelve kilometres wide. I t i s bounded in the south by the chalk uplands o f the Berkshire Downs and in the north by the gravels of the upper Thames valley, both o f which are known to possess extensive archaeological r emains. Many Prehistoric a nd Roman s ites survived on the Downs because the area was u sed a s upland pasture until the beginning o f the l ast century. The upper Thames gravels, though without s imilar upstanding monuments, i s exceptionally r ich i n crop mark s ites s everal o f which have been excavated in advance o f gravel extraction and building development. In contrast, the western end of the Vale is virtually without upstanding prehistoric earthworks and has rarely produced any significant cropmarks because of its poorly drained clay s oils. I n a recent volume on the archaeology of Oxfordshire several contributors s tressed that the county a s a whole was too small a n area o n which to base a s tudy o f the past. ( Briggs, G . Cook, J & Rowley, T . 1 986). Discussion o f the archaeological record on a r egional or s ub-regional l evel r elies o n i nformation derived f rom excavations, stray f inds and unstructured or biased artefact collections. I nevitably, d istortions i nherent i n such data will l ead to questionable conclusions. One function of a microregional survey such as this, i s that it allows hypotheses derived from potentially unrepresentative data to be tested against assemblages recovered under controlled conditions. Systematic surface collection seems to offer one of the most p romising avenues by which i t i s possible to consider a spects o f s ettlement and e conomy i n p eriods when the upstanding r emains are r are a nd in areas where a ir photographs are uninformative. This s eems particularly true o f the Vale which was r eferred to i n pre-war excavation reports and synthetic studies, a s an area l argely devoid o f archaeological s ignificance. The explosion o f evidence brought about by a erial s urvey i n the 1 950's a nd 1 960's t ransformed perceptions o f s ettlement a nd l and-use o f the upper Thames gravels a nd even the Chalk Downs. The absence o f a s imilar body of new evidence from the Vale merely confirmed old prejudices. I n the context o f I ron Age and Roman s ettlement, i t was r ecently s uggested that, " The Vale may have f ormed an unpopulated divide between a densely o ccupied north Wessex Zone and an equally densely populated Upper Thames Zone" ( Hingley, R . 1 985. 2 09). L imited f ieldwalking s urveys i n t he early 1 980s' r evealed a h igh density o f Roman s ites i n parts o f t he northern edge o f the Vale ( Miles, D . 1 982, 6 3). This implied t hat the absence o f w idespread archaeological r emains was n ot a true r eflection o f past a ctivity but resulted f rom shortcomings in the methods by which the evidence had b een s ought. This survey of the Vale was not initiated to answer specific questions about particular s ites in the s ame way a s the Maddle Project ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989). Nonetheless, their combined coverage represents the largest single area of systematic f ieldwalking published to date, exceeding the total coverage o f the East B erkshire S urvey by only 1 01 h ectares ( Ford, S 1 987 a , 1 8). The publication o f s imilar s urveys i n the Kennet valley, around Stonehenge and in Dorset will however f urther broaden the scope for the comparison of survey results on a r egional s cale ( Richards, J .0 1 990).

5

• 1 00 m, ' /" - -' •

„

s N

C

•

1 25 mr

1 50 n • •

s ' • • • •

1 2g-m, ,

/ J

. .

_ .

• .,

% /

•

,

e

\

/ /

/

\ /"•,_

I\ 1

. \

. % 1

•

(

1 25 d ,

\ /

/

. ,7

( ./

.•

-

I l

.-.. . . .) „ . ;( / _. / / ._, . . .

/ .

. . . .

/

r‚

•

_---- ---- ; _ _ I 1 00 m,"

/

. . ..• /

/

/

. ‘ . . ,

1 0Orn ,'

• •

•V

l o om:

\

t.

e

,

I ' I .

• . -

. . .. . . .." . .

, •

/

. .. . . ./

/ /

. .

1 / 1 ,

1/

. /

-J

1

/

2

I

1 "50m .. -/

-'

/-

. .. . / /

/

/

/

/ ,

'

/

/ / /

/

/ / ,

/

7

1:5 M/

\ t . . t ' 1' , -, . . " •1t I

, t _

,' "

_ ,,/ • 2 00r5/

/' ' - ''. . « . . -

• - — , s'

2 25 m I ,

/

/

1 .4

The r elief

a nd drainage o f

6

-

' )

.

K ILO METRES

F ig

l

.

j

•1

/

1 25 m

t he Vale s urvey a rea

_

-'

/ • 2 , . . 50 m

•

2 ).

The Physical Geography o f

P late 2 . i .

R elief

The

s carp

f ace o f

the Vale

the Downs within the

s urvey a rea

a nd Drainage.

The geology o f the Vale o f the White H orse i s c haracterised by bands of c lays and s ands r unning approximately parallel to one a nother i n a north east, to south westerly direction ( Fig 1 .2). The f ieldwalking s urvey examined a two k ilometre wide t ransect i n t he Vale p laced a t r ight a ngles to i ts g eology and topography ( Fig 1 .2). A l ongitudinal s ection a cross t he s urvey area s hows a profile o f the Vale with i ts underlying g eology f rom U ffington Castle to Badbury H ill ( Fig 1 .3). The i ncline o f t he Chalk s carp i s a t i ts most extreme at t his point. A s p late 2 s hows, t he edge o f the Downs in the survey area i s marked by a comparatively g entle s lope which h as been p loughed f rom a t l east t he m iddle o f t he l ast century. F rom the f oot o f the Downs, the Vale appears to be a lmost level although in reality i t continues to slope g ently f rom n orth t o s outh ( Plate 3 ; F ig 1 .3). The l owest part o f the Vale ( approx 8 0 metres above s ea l evel) i s s ituated on the j unction of the Kimmeridge clay and the Corallian beds which f orms the course o f the early s tages o f the r iver Ock From this point, the Corallian beds f orm a s eries o f l ow r idges a t r ightangles to the s urvey transect, on one o f which the village o f Longcot i s s ituated ( Plate 4 ). The n orthernmost edge o f the Vale i s marked by a s eries o f uneven r idges, o f which B adbury i s o ne o f the h ighest. These d ivide the Vale f rom t he c lay a nd gravels o f t he u pper Thames valley ( Plate 5 ).

7

P late 3 .

The z one o f Gault C lay a t the

P late 4 .

The z one o f K immeridge c lay to t he s outh o f Longcot.

8

f oot o f the Downs.

P late

5 .

The

Corallian b eds

to t he

s outh o f

Badbury H ill

I t h as been e stimated that 9 0 per cent o f the soils i n the Vale o f the White Horse and the Oxford Clay Vale present drainage problems for modern agriculture ( Jarvis, M .G. 1 973, 1 56). The main a rterial drainage f or the Vale i s provided by t he r iver O ck and its tributaries, though the river i s little more than a s tream in the survey a rea ( Fig 1 .4). The Ock has a l arge catchment area but i ts l imited f all creates a h igh water table that can l ead to short term f looding in winter ( Jarvis, M . G. 1 973, 1 56). The poor drainage i s a lso i ndicated by the n umber o f p lace names in the east of the Vale that include the element EYE ( Island) such a s Goosey, Charney and Hanney ( Gelling, M . 1 978, 1 24). A lthough waterlogging imposes o bvious l imitations o n arable a nd pastoral agriculture, i t i s l ikely t hat the s urvey area o ccupies o ne o f the drier parts o f the Vale f or i t examined an area that i s s lightly h igher t han t he s urrounding c laylands a nd f orms part o f t he watershed o f t he r ivers O ck a nd Cole. Measurements o f s oil water tension profiles i n the c lay soils o f this area s u9gest that crests or even s lopes will dry out s ignificantly quicker than those on concave f ootslopes ( Jarvis, M .G. 1 973, 7 7). One o f the most s triking f eatures o f the Vales drainage are the n umerous springs that r ise a t the f oot o f t he Downs. These o ccur a t the j unction of the permeable Chalk and Greensand with the impermeable Gault C lay a nd a re t he f ocus f or a band o f s pringline s ettlements. i i.

S oils

and Land u se

As Figure 1 .2 shows, the Vale survey area extends from the downland Chalk into parallel bands o f Gault a nd K immeridge c lay, beyond which are areas of Corallian beds and lower Greensand through which Oxford c lay discontinuously i ntrudes. This g ives r ise to a variety o f s oil t ypes which a re r ated b etween g rade o ne

9

and g rade

s ix.

The six grades used by the Soil Survey of England and Wales classify properties such as stoniness, liability to pan or drought or f lood a s well a s gradient and location ( Jarvis, M .G. 1 973). They reflect modern agricultural practices and values a nd s hould not be considered a s evidence o f an areas past potential or perceived value . Fields immediately adjacent to r ivers are f requently l isted a s grade s ix ( the l owest value c lassification) because of their propensity to f lood. Within the last few centuries however, water meadows were greatly valued s ince they produced s ignificant amounts o f winter f odder. Apart f rom i solated pockets o f grade o ne l and between Longcot a nd Shrivenham, the most highly rated s oils i n the survey area are those on the s carp f ace o f the Downs a round the springline a nd o n the Corallian ridge a round Badbury H ill. These are s uitable f or a rable without r equiring l iming a lthough the presence o f s heep o n the former was until recently seen a s beneficial ( Pizer, N .H. 1 931, 4 0). Between these two areas, the s oils o f the K immeridge and Gault clays are made up of the Denchworth and Ford End s eries, a mixture o f g rades three a nd f our ( Fig 1 .2). Both s uffer f rom poor drainage which r estrict arable a griculture though this i s l ess acute with the Ford End s eries. Regular manuring would produce good quality g rassland, a lthough i n l ow l ying a reas, much o f i t i s too wet to a llow even s heep to g raze i n winter ( Pizer, N .H. 1 931, 3 3). 2 ). Past uses of the Landscape: Vale o f the White Horse.

Environmental

models

of

the

Following excavations at Frilford and Cherbury in the 1 930's, a ttempts were made to r econstruct the prehistoric environment a nd l and use of the Vale using the geology and soil types of the region as the main source of evidence ( Bradford, J . P. S & Goodchild, R . G. 1 937; Huntingford, G . W.B. 1 936). The Corallian r idge i s r epresented a s o pen grassland i n prehistory, while t he r est o f the Vale was more or l ess impenetrable f orest. The Vale was seen a s barrier between the Wessex chalk uplands and the o ccupation that had spread a long the Corallian ridge, a model that r eflected the contemporary v iew t hat l owland c learance was presumed to have o ccurred during the Saxon period ( Huntingford, G . W. B. 1 936). Partial confirmation of this view was given by e arly environment evidence f rom Cherbury when cultivation o f a n a rea o f pasture to the south a nd east o f the h ill f ort r evealed huge quantities of snail shells. Analysis of these showed a preponderance of two species ( Succinea pfeifferi and Trichia h ispida). Both o f these s uggested t hat the area had been a marsh o r swamp i n the g eologically r ecent past ( Arkell, W .J. 1 939). 3 ).

The a ims

o f

the

s urvey

One o f t he main objectives o f t he Maddle Farm project h ad been t o s tudy patterns o f s ettlement a nd l and-use o n the Berkshire Downs, ( Gaffney, V & T ingle M . 1 989). The b ulk o f the evidence that was recovered by surface collection on the Downs was made up of prehistoric worked f lint and Roman-British pottery. Data collection in the Vale of the White Horse therefore had two immediate objectives. Firstly, to examine the way i n which the f lint a ssemblage, a ssumed to d erive exclusively f rom the Downs, changed a s the distance f rom the Downs i ncreased. Secondly to determine whether the Roman pottery s catters encountered on the Downs extended i nto the Vale, a nd i f they did, to characterise t heir nature a nd extent. Although the s urvey was not based on a specific s ettlement complex, i t shared with the Maddle project the o bjective o f e stablishing a s ystematically collected data s et which could be used as a basis for future micro-regional s tudies.

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Widespaced f ieldwalking in the Vale was not expected to would recover s ignificant amounts of post-Roman pottery. The Maddle Project had f ound virtually n o Anglo-Saxon or Medieval pottery o n the downland to the north o f Lambourn, which was to b e e xpected, g iven the complete absence o f medieval s ettlements i n this area ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 2 46). Surprisingly, Medieval pottery was a lso absent f urther south i n the Lambourn Valley, between the villages of Eastbury and the deserted site of Bockhampton on the edge of Lambourn. Before the publication o f f ieldwork results f rom East Berkshire and Hampshire, the only evidence of a Medieval manuring scatter in Wessex came from B eedon Manor Farm, on the Downs to the n orth o f Newbury ( Shennan, S . 1 985 8 9-104; Ford, S . 1 987 a , 4 6-49; R ichards, J .C. 1 978, 7 6). To test whether the lack of medieval data resulted from shortcomings in the survey methodology or from its genuine absence f rom the f ield s urface, a small s cale intensive s urvey was carried out on the outskirts of the village of Denham, Buckinghamshire, a known production s ite o f pottery f rom the mid thirteenth century and where metal detecting had produced numerous finds of medieval and post-Medieval metal work ( McCarthy, R & Brooks, M . 1 988, 293; J Weekes, Pers Comm). I ntensive collection was carried o ut i n two f ields, o ne o f which was immediately adjacent to the parish church. Although a prehistoric f lint a ssemblage was r ecovered f rom both o f t he a reas examined, the only pottery located was a small group o f postMedieval sherds. It therefore seemed likely that Medieval manuring s catters might b e a comparative rarity. Limitations o f r esources and time restricted the s urvey o f the Vale o f the White Horse to widespaced collection. I n the course of the Maddle Farm survey, two intensive collections at the Maddle Farm Villa and the Knighton Bushes settlement had recovered as much Roman pottery as the entire widespaced collection f rom 1 792 h ectares. Had a s econd s eason's work been f easible, a n i ntensive examination would h ave been made o f e ither the l ithic s catters a ssociated with soilmarks a t Badbury H ill o r the Anglo-Saxon pottery concentration near Compton Beauchamp. Without i ntensive collection, a ny excavation o f a s urface s catter would have lacked clear objectives, so none were attempted, though a trial trench was cut into an upstanding earthwork a t Longcot The survey of the Vale of the White Horse took place in the winter o f 1 984, one year a fter the completion o f f ieldwork f or the Maddle Farm Project ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989). The original sampling design o f The Maddle Farm Project h ad i ncluded a l imited examination o f t he Vale, though this was s ubsequently abandoned to concentrate resources on the survey o f the Downs ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 8 ). A central objective was therefore to gather a significant body of data f rom the Vale would b e d irectly comparable with the Maddle s urvey a nd a lso with s imilar work i n East B erkshire ( Gaffney, V & T ingle M . 1 989; Ford S . 1 987 a ). 4 ).

The Methodology o f

the Survey

The Survey transect ran i n a north westerly direction a t r ight a ngles to the topography a nd underlying geology f rom the Middle Chalk near U ffington Castle to an o utcrop o f Ferruginous s and a t Badbury H ill. This a llowed the s urvey to examine a r epresentative sample of the geology of the Vale and investigate whether a ctivities r eflected i n the s urface a ssemblage were i nfluenced by variations in soil type, rather than concentrating on any particular types o f s ites o r s pecific t ime periods ( cf. Ford, S . 1 987 a , 7 ). The survey transect was 2 kilometres wide and extended 9 .5 k ilometres f rom the northern edge o f t he Maddle F arm

1 2

survey area, covering a total of 1 8.5 square kilometres ( Fig 1 .5). Although the Vale r emains predominantly pastoral there i s a s ignificant and i n r ecent years a growing proportion o f arable. I n t he 1 850 hectares o f the s urvey transect, 4 37 h ectares were arable f ields suitable f or walking, giving a coverage of 2 3%. This i s considerably lower than that for the neighbouring Downland, on which a coverage o f 6 8% was possible, but i s a lmost identical to that a chieved by the East B erkshire S urvey ( Gaffney, V & T ingle, M . 1 989; Ford, S . 1 987 a ). The Survey was carried out with a team of five experienced graduate archaeologists during a s ix week p eriod i n the months o f October and November 1 984. The methodology for the survey was i dentical to that o f the Maddle Farm Project. I t was based on the Ordnance Survey h ectare grid which appears o n 1 :2500 s cale maps. This h as become the basis f or a ll f ieldwalking s urveys conducted by t he Trust f or Wessex Archaeology ( Richards, J .C. 1 985; Ford, S 1 987 a ; Gaffney, V a nd T ingle, M . 1 989). I n each f ield that was examined, the h ectare grid was marked o ut on the s urface with h ighly visible markers. Each h ectare square was then subdivided i nto eight f ieldwalking runs aligned f rom north to south. These units o f widespaced collection were 2 5 m ae rc th ra ee so l ao pg ai rc ta l an s d ig 5 n 0 if m ie ct ar ne cs e i f n r om le a ng ll t hp e (r Fi io gd s 1 ,

. 6 i ) n .c l A u l d l in m ga t b e ur ri na t lao nd f

f oreign stone, was collected a lthough the former was discarded a fter i t had been washed, counted and weighed. A s tep by s tep a ccount of this methodology appears in the text of the Maddle Farm report to assist anyone wishing to use i t ( Gaffney, V & Tingle, M . 1 989). The only additional procedure, adopted following advice from a representative of the Agricultural D evelopment Advisory S ervice ( ADAS), were measures to counter a ny possibility o f s preading s oil borne p lant d iseases, particularly Barley Yellow Mosaic Virus. Thus f ieldwalkers boots a nd the t ips of the survey marker canes were cleaned when moving between f ields b elonging to d ifferent f arms. A r ecord was kept o f f actors s uch a s weather conditions, which were l ikely to have s ome i nfluence on the r ecovery r ates i n the f ield, despite reservations concerning the u sefulness of this information ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 1 8). The only factor observed to have a significant effect on artefact recovery, was the type of crop that was being grown, or more correctly the degree o f s urface weathering that the cultivation o f d iffering crops a llowed ( cf. Shennan, S . 1 985, 3 9). Sprouting cereal crops were encountered in all but one of the walked f ields, the exception being a n a rea o f maize s tubble a djacent to Badbury hill fort. After this crop had been harvested, the surface of the f ield was left untouched until manuring and planting the f ollowing spring. Unlike the cereal f ields which were examined after approximately two months weathering, the s urface o f the maize f ield had b een exposed f or over s ix months. Combined with the f act that the soil was a f ine s and, the extra period o f weathering resulted in an exceptional exposure o f artefacts particularly small p ieces o f f lint. I t h as b een e stimated t hat a f ieldwalker can e ffectively examine an area between one a nd two and a half metres wide when s lowly traversing a f ield ( Ford, S . 1 987, 1 1; Richards, J .C. 1 984, 3 1: S ee F ig 1 .6 ) . I f the Trust f or Wessex Archaeology f ield s urvey methodology i s u sed, b etween 4 % a nd 1 0% o f t he total s urface area of each hectare i s examined. Experimental sieving o f topsoil f ollowing s urface collection has e stablished the proportion of all artefacts within the ploughsoil that are visible on the surface at any one time. The results have been variable suggesting a f igure a s l ittle a s 2 %-5% to as much a s 1 6%-17% ( Crowther, D 1 983, 3 1 ; Gaffney, V & T ingle, M . 1 989; Reynolds, P . 1 982, 3 22). While this indicates that widespaced surface

1 3

collection r ecovers a very small proportion o f the total number of artefacts within the ploughsoil, the results of repeated collection o f the s ame f ield show that i t i s a consistent a nd representative sample of the whole a ssemblage ( Gaffney, V & T ingle M . 1 989, 2 0-27).

D i

F ig 1 .6 The s urface coverage o f each s urveyed h ectare a t s cale o f 1 4cm t o 1 00 metres. F igure 1 .6 , s hows the s pacing o f each f ieldwalking collection unit within the hectare f ield grid. The shaded areas s how the p roportion o f each h ectare examined, a ssumin9 that collection i s proceeding i n a two metre wide f ield o f v ision. Although f ieldwalking material i s collected f rom a s eries o f narrow parallel s trips, t he r esults a re r arely presented i n t his f orm. F aced with a widespread collection method a cross s uch a l arge a rea, i t i s common to present the results by amalgamating the totals f rom each hectare. I t i s u sually only desirable to plot out f ield collection r uns i ndividually over comparatively small a reas, s uch a s f or the d istribution o f grass t empered pottery a t the f oot o f t he D owns ( See Ch 5 ).

1 4

Throughout this report, the quantity o f material recovered by widespaced collection will be described i n t erms o f the numbers o f sherds or f lakes per h ectare. This r efers specifically to the amount o f material recovered by the methodology outlined above r ather than an absolute f igure f or the total s urface population o f a h ectare square. This a llows direct comparisons to be made with o ther surveys that utilise a s imilar methodology. Surveys based on different collection units h ave expressed their results i n t erms o f the amount o f material r ecovered f rom 1 00 metres o f walked l ine ( Shennan, S . 1 985). Converting a total expressed a s a rtefacts per h ectare t o a value for artefacts p er 1 00 metres o f walked l ine, can b e a chieved s imply by d ividing the f ormer value by f our. 5 ).

A ir Photographs

o f

t he Vale

I n a r eview o f t he a erial coverage o f t he Vale o f the White Horse i n 1 975, Bradley noted a predominance o f pasture i n which r idge and f urrow were the only identifiable f eatures ( Bradley, R .J. & Ellison, A . 1 975). Although the amount o f arable land has increased s ince that date, additional aerial survey work has y ielded l ittle n ew material because o f t he l imitations imposed by a combination o f s oil t ypes a nd l and u se. G iven t he h igh l evel o f Medieval and l ater a ctivity in the Vale, i t i s l ikely that only s ubstantial prehistoric f eatures will b e r ecognised, f or example part o f a l arge double enclosure has been noted to the west o f Great Coxwell at the perhaps significantly named Bury Hill ( Oxfordshire SMR No 1 2043; F ig 3 .1). I n a ddition, when t he a erial coverage of the survey area was examined, two indistinct concentric r ings o f s egmented soilmarks were noted adjacent to the h illfort a t B adbury R ing ( Chapter Two F ig 2 .7). 6 ).

D ocumentary Evidence

f or Activity

i n t he Vale

The documentary evidence for the Vale in the Anglo-Saxon and Medieval periods has attracted many h istorians and h istorical geographers to s tudy the area ( Gelling, M . 1 978; Brookes, J . 1 982; Hooke, D . 1 988). Ninth century charters exist f or s everal estates in the survey area and later sources such as tax returns, legal and personal documents also survive. Written r ecords for the post medieval period a llowed the comparison o f archaeological data with maps, estate books, detailed contemporary a ccounts o f l and u se a nd even evidence f rom s tanding buildings. This enabled some estimation of the accuracy of observations to be made for earlier periods where no such documentary counter balance exists.

1 5

CHAPTER TWO EARLY PREHISTORY 1 .

I ntroduction

In the past, the Vale was considered to be largely devoid of prehistoric s ettlement. Peake depicte i t a s a primeval woodland while others described it as a mixture of forest and marsh sufficiently impenetrable to deter regular communications between Wessex, the Corallian Ridge and the Cotswolds ( Peake, H .J.E. 1 931; B radford, J .P.S & Goodchild, R .G. 1 937, 5 ). Post war aerial s urvey has done l ittle to change this view o f the Vale, despite producing new evidence for the chalk Downs and the gravels o f the upper Thames. I n the l ate 1 970's these theories were modified by Bradley referring to the diagnostic arrowheads that had been collected f rom the Vale and the Downs by Passmore and Barnes. I t was s uggested that the Vale was unoccupied during the Mesolithic and early Neolithic with settlement activity beginning in the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age ( Bradley, R .J. & E llison A . 1 975, 1 91). The absence of early prehistoric earthworks in the Vale, in marked contrast to n umerous s ites o n t he B erkshire Downs, h as l ed many to a ssume a commensurately l ow l evel o f general p rehistoric activity. It is possible that Medieval arable cultivation obliterated prehistoric features in the Vale, though arable cultivation o f the Downs during the Roman p eriod appears to have had n o comparable e ffect. Mounds which could h ave been Bronze Age barrows, such a s the" Maer B eorh" n ear Watchfield, are no l onger extant but were mentioned i n a n Anglo-Saxon charters ( Grinsell, L .V. 1 938, 1 05). The excavation o f a r ing d itch a t Longcot, which was though to be a ploughed out barrow, showed that it was a post-Medieval f eature ( Bradley, R & E llison, A . 1 975). One o f the main a ims o f the f ieldwalking s urvey o f the Vale o f the White Horse was to test the above hypothesis: was the Vale l argely unoccupied in early prehistory or i s i t j ust that the evidence for activity in the Vale has not previously been recognised. Immediately to the south on the Downs, the Maddle Farm project h ad r ecovered a lmost 4 0,000 p ieces o f worked f lint. A comparison between material from the Vale and the Downs was expected to reveal the nature, date and extent of prehistoric a ctivity a cross a variety o f topographic a nd g eological z ones. 2 ). i .

The Assemblage o f

P rehistoric

F lint Artefacts.

Composition

The f ieldwalking s urvey collected a total o f 6 58 pieces o f worked f lint f rom the Vale ( Figs2.1, 2 .2 & 2 .3). The basic composition o f the f lint a ssemblage r ecovered f rom t he Vale i s s hown i n Table 2 .1 together with comparable data f rom the Maddle Farm Project ( MFP) and the East Berkshire Archaeological Survey, EBAS ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989 : Ford, S . 1 987). To make direct comparisons possible, analysis o f the f lint a ssemblage f rom the Vale u sed the same method a s the Maddle Farm Project ( Gaffney, V a nd T ingle, M . 1 989). All unretouched f lakes were c lassified a s P rimary ( with more than 5 0% o f cortex on the dorsal s urface), S econdary ( with l ess than 5 0% o f cortex on the dorsal s urface) or Tertiary ( with n o cortex on the dorsal surface). Cores were sorted into three classes; Unsystematic, Systematic ( showing evidence of platform preparation) a nd B lade Cores. An e stimation o f t he percentage o f

1 6

Fig

2 .1

The distribution

o f

f lint

1 7

f lakes

within

Zones

A to D .

V

UNSYSTE MAT IC CORE

V

SYSTE MAT IC CORE

.

BLADE CORE

H

HAM MERSTONE

\

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N

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1

2

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K ILOMETRES

F ig 2 .2

The d istribution o f

f lint cores

1 8

a nd h ammerstones

remaining surface cortex was also made. Burnt flint was counted and weighed while broken flakes and core fragments were merely counted . VALE MADDLE FARM EAST BERKS ( 437 Hectares) ( 1792 Hectares) ( 2126 Hectares) FLAKES

6 58

3 7,010

2 633

FLAKES PER HECTARE

1 .50

2 0.64

1 .23

CORES CORES PER HECTARE

6 7

1 871

2 13

0 .15

1 .04

0 .10

RETOUCHED TOOLS RETOUCHED TOOLS PER HECTARE

9 3

1 084

4 56

0 .212

0 .604

0 .214

Table i i.

The

2 .1

The fieldwalking lithic assemblage of the Vale compared with two a ssemblages from other surveys

retouched tool

a ssemblage VALE

NO SCRAPERS 3 9 RETOUCHED FLAKES 2 8 RETOUCHED BLADES 8 NOTCHED FLAKES 5 MICROLITHS 3 BORERS 3 FLAKE AXE FRAG 1 POLISHED AXE FRAG 1 FABRICATORS 1 SAW/KNIVES 2 SERRATED FLAKES LEAF ARROWHEAD 1 OBLIQUE ARROWHEAD 1 TANGED ARROWHEAD 1 B &T ARROWHEAD TRIANGULAR A HEAD TOTAL Table

SURVEY ADJUSTED / OF TOTAL TOTAL / 4 1.05% / 2 9.57% / 8 .42% / 5 .26% / 3 .15% / 3 .15% / 1 .05% / 1 .05% / 1 .05% / 2 .10% / 0 / 1 .05% / 1 .05% / 1 .05% / 0 / 0

1 60 1 15 3 3 2 0 1 2 1 2 4 4 4 8 0 4 4 4 0 0

9 4 2 .2

3 84

MADDLE NO 7 25 2 02

FARM

/ OF TOTAL / 6 6.27% / 1 8.46%

2 6

/

2 .37%

6 1

/

5 .57%

6 1 5 3 6 2 4 1 1 9 6

/ / / / / / / / /

0 .54% 1 .37% 3 .29% 0 .18% 0 .36% 0 .09% 0 .09% 0 .82% 0 .54%

1 094

A comparis on of the retouched tool from the Maddle Farm and Vale Surveys

assemblages

The adjusted total for the Vale implements is achieved by multiplying the basic totals of artefacts by a factor of 4 .1 to take into account the difference in size of the two survey areas. Although the assemblage from the Vale is smaller in number than that of the Downs , this need not result from the Downs having been the focus of a correspondingly greater intensity of prehistoric activity. The percentage of scrapers showing evidence of wear and breakage in the Downland assemblage was 1 6% compared with 2 7% in the Vale suggesting a much more intensive use of individual implements in the latter area. Conversely, with one exception, there i s no evidence from the Vale of the sort of recurring wear and breakage patterns that were observed on the Downs ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 46). Much of the disparity between the two adjusted totals results f rom the dominance of scrapers and retouched f lakes in the

1 9

F ig 2 .3

The d istribution o f r etouched t ools 2 0

Downland assemblage. I f these two classes are removed from table the adjusted totals of all retouched tools would be 1 09 the Vale and 1 67 for the Downs. i i

the for

Distribution

For the purposes of analysis, the survey area of the Vale was divided into four zones based on topography and geology. Zone A , the edge of the chalk scarp. Zone B , the area of Gault and Kimmeridge clays between the scarp and a low ridge of Corallian deposits near Longcot. Zone C , the area of the ridge itself and Zone D the remainder of the survey area to the North of Longcot including the Corallian Ridge at Badbury Hill ( Fig 2 . 1 ). Attempt to reconstruct past activities from a widespread and unstratified flint assemblage must be open to extensive qualification. One can comment on the presence or absence of tool types, the relative densities of various categories of f lake and the degree of flint conservation practised in prehistory ( as suggested by discarded cores) but one cannot comment on the time period over which these activities took place. ZONE A FLAKES

TOTAL NUMBER

PRIMARY FLAKES SECONDARY FLAKES TERTIARY FLAKES

MEAN NO PER HECTARE

3 2 7 8 5 4

% OF AREA ASSEMBLAGE

0 .88 2 .16 1 .5

1 9.5% 4 7.5% 3 2.9%

TOTAL NUMBER OF HECTARES WALKED = TOTAL NUMBER OF FLAKES RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF FLAKES PER HECTARE = MEAN NUMBER OF FLAKES PER 5 0m RUN = TOTAL NUMBER OF BROKEN FLAKES = MEAN BROKEN FLAKES PER HECTARE =

MEAN WEIGHT 1 5.84g 1 0.29g 8 .24g

3 6 1 64 4 .55 0 .56 3 2 0 .88

CORES TOTAL NUMBER OF CORES RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF CORES PER HECTARE MEAN WEIGHT OF CORES

= 1 7 = 0 .472 = 5 4.88

TOOLS SCRAPERS RETOUCHED FLAKES BORERS NOTCHED FLAKES AXE FRAGMENTS ARROWHEAD ROD

TOTAL NUMBER OF TOOLS RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF TOOLS PER HECTARE Table

2 .3

The

f lint

% OF AREA ASSEMBLAGE 3 8.09% 2 8.57% 9 .25% 4 .76% 9 .25% 4 .76% 4 .76%

NUMBER 8 6 2 1 2 1 1

assemblage

= 2 1 = 0 .58 from Zone A

Zone A covers an area from the top of the chal k scarp, immediately to the north of the Maddle Farm Survey area, to its base. The geology of Zone A varies from Middle Chalk at the top of the scarp through Lower Chalk to Upper Greensand, none of which include deposits of f lint. Detailed examination of two locations on the top of the s carp, designated Areas 1 and 2 , were

2 1

made during the Maddle Farm Project, Area 2 being immediately adjacent to the southern end o f the Vale survey area ( Gaffney, V & Tingle, M . 1 989, 3 5-38). These areas were characterised by low densities of flakes in which secondary and tertiary types predominated. Compared to the rest of the Downs cores were scarce ( 0 .046 and 0 .083 per hectare) and small (mean weight 51. 5g and 48. 5g). In contrast, Zone A shows much higher densities of cores, f lakes and retouched tools. This may in part result from a greater exposure of artefacts on the scarp face because of the down slope movement of topsoil. Greater soil movement cannot wholly account for the marked increase in core densities, from 0 .083 per hectare in Area 2 o f the Maddle Survey to 0 .472 per hectare in Zone A ( Fig 2 .1). Taken together with higher mean pri mary flake weights and the presence of hammerstones, an increased incidence of core reduction at the edge o f the Vale i s s uggested. The s imilar increase i n the density and range o f retouched tools may point to other activities a lso being focused here ( Fig 2 .3). Two f lint axe fragments, one f laked and one polished, were f ound on the s carp edge l ess than two kilometres f rom Waylands Smithy. This confirms the pattern observed on the Downs where f lakes f rom polished axes were found only in the dry valleys that a lso contained long barrows ( Gaffney, V & Tingle, M . 1 989, 5 1). No other axes or axe f ragments were found by the s urvey o f the Vale. ZONE FLAKES TOTAL NUMBER PRIMARY FLAKES SECONDARY FLAKES TERTIARY FLAKES

MEAN NO PER HECTARE

1 5 2 7 2 1

% OF AREA ASSEMBLAGE

0 .07 0 .13 0 .10

2 3.80% 4 2.85% 3 3.83%

TOTAL NUMBER OF H ECTARES WALKED = TOTAL NUMBER OF FLAKES RECOVERED = MEAN NUMBER OF FLAKES PER H ECTARE = MEAN NUMBER OF FLAKES P ER 5 0m RUN = TOTAL NUMBER OF BROKEN FLAKES = MEAN BROKEN FLAKES PER H ECTARE =

MEAN WEIGHT 1 1.6g 1 2.7g 5 .6g

2 06 6 3 0 .31 0 .038 1 8 0 .087

CORES TOTAL NUMBER OF CORES RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF CORES PER HECTARE MEAN WEIGHT OF CORES

= 1 0 = 0 .048 = 1 19g

TOOLS S CRAPERS RETOUCHED FLAKES NOTCHED FLAKES M ICROLITH ARROWHEAD

TOTAL NUMBER OF TOOLS RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF TOOLS PER HECTARE Table

2 .4

The Flint

% OF AREA ASSEMBLAGE 4 5% 3 5% 1 0% 5 % 5 %

NUMBER 9 7 2 1 1

a ssemblage

= =

2 0 0 .097

f rom Zone B

Zone B i s s ituated between the chalk s carp and a s light ridge o f outlying Corallian sand mid-way across the Vale. I t i s composed o f three roughly parallel deposits o f Gault and Kimmerid9e c lays and Corallian beds. The Kimmeridge clay forms a low l ying area prone to f looding, through which f lows the r iver Ock ( See Fig

2 2

1 .3). The densities of f lakes and cores the l owest recovered in the survey ( Figs

Fig

2 .4

The distribution geology

o f

retouched

found in this 2 .1; 2 .2).

tools

in

relation

Zone

to

are

solid

Most o f the a ssemblage found in this Zone was recovered f rom the southern half , which i s predominantly Greensand and Gault clay. This preference i s particularly striking when the distribution o f retouched tools i s plotted against the underlying geology for there is an absence of retouched material from the Kimmeridge Clay ( Fig 2 .4). This could result either f rom a post depositional process which removed tools f rom the surface assemblage or from contemporary ground conditions which limited the types of activity that led to the discard of retouched tools. Since the total assemblage f rom Zone B i s so small, neither hypothesis can be effectively tested , but i t i s difficult to postulate a postdepositional process which would have more effect on retouched tools than on f lakes and cores. ZONE C . FLAKES

PRIMARY FLAKES SECONDARY FLAKES TERTIARY FLAKES

TOTAL NUMBER 1 6 6 8 5 5

MEAN NO PER HECTARE 0 .23 0 .98 0 .79

2 3

% OF AREA ASSEMBLAGE 1 1.0% 4 9.0% 4 0.0%

MEAN WEIGHT 8 .25g 7 .16g 4 .58g

TOTAL NUMBER OF HECTARES WALKED TOTAL NUMBER OF FLAKES RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF FLAKES PER HECTARE MEAN NUMBER OF FLAKES PER 5 0m RUN TOTAL NUMBER OF BROKEN FLAKES MEAN BROKEN FLAKES PER HECTARE

= = = = = =

6 9 1 39 2 .01 0 .25

6 3

0 .91

CORES TOTAL NUMBER OF CORES RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF CORES PER HECTARE MEAN WEIGHT OF CORES

= 2 5 = 0 .36 = 3 4.56g

TOOLS % OF AREA ASSEMBLAGE 3 0.4% 4 3.4% 4 .3% 1 7.4%

NUMBER 7 1 1 1 4

SCRAPERS RETOUCHED FLAKES NOTCHED FLAKES BORER

TOTAL NUMBER OF TOOLS RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF TOOLS PER HECTARE Table

2 .5

The

Flint Assemblage

= 2 3 = 0 .33 From Zone C

0 .5 CORES P ER HECTARE 0 .4

A

B

C

D

ZONES Fig

2 .5

The Distribution

of

cores

in

Zones A to D .

I N

2 00

0

• •

•

0 •• •

METRES

• • R

• V

• B

•

•

•

0 R S

•

• •

•

V

V

V V •

• 0

•

•

V V

• •

R • •

R • •

V •

•

S •

•

•

•

•

0

•

•

•

•

•

V •

•

•

•

• •

I T

• •

V

V

•

•

R • •

• •

• •

V H

•

•

•

S

• •

R

V •

•

•

V •

•

R

•

•

•

•

• •

F LAKES O

4

•

3

•

2

•

1

CORES ✓

DO WNLAND

✓

R IVER GRAVEL

a

• • •

•

•

V

•

•

B V •

•

•

•

• •

•

B

N • S

•

•

SARSEN

TOOLS H

F ig 2 .6

•

HAMMERSTONE

S

SCRAPER

R

R ETOUCHED

N

NOTCHED F LAKE

B

BORER

B

The d istribution o f f lakes, w ithin z one C . 2 5

cores a nd r etouched t ools

Zone C comprises of a low ridge of sand and limestone which f orms a spur from the main Corallian ridge and divides the Kimmerage and Oxford clays ( Fig 1 .4). An unusually high number of cores were recovered in this area ( Fig 2 .1; 2 .5). Most o f these originated from the Downs, one being a piece of worked Sarsen ( See Fig 2 .6). Widespaced collection results show no obvious concentration of material though the cores tend to cluster i n the north western side of the zone. Although much o f the raw material derives from the Downs, the assemblage bears l ittle resemblance to that recovered during the Maddle Project. The composition of the flake assemblage reveals an unusually high proportion of tertiary f lakes, while their weight range i s anomalously l ow. The mean weight of the cores i s substantially below that of any of the areas examined on the Downs. The presence of cores and hammerstones i n proximity to one another, together with a greater than normal density of f lakes, i ndicates that flint, some of it in the form of nodules, was being brought from the Downs to this area for working. The very low density of primary f lakes may occur because the cortex was partially removed f rom the cores before they l eft the Downs. Z ONE 1 2 FLAKES TOTAL NUMBER PRIMARY FLAKES S ECONDARY FLAKES TERTIARY FLAKES

1 8 5 4 4 7

MEAN NO PER HECTARE

% OF AREA ASSEMBLAGE

0 .14 0 .43 0 .37

TOTAL NUMBER OF HECTARES WALKED TOTAL NUMBER OF FLAKES RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF FLAKES PER H ECTARE MEAN NUMBER OF FLAKES PER 5 0m RUN TOTAL NUMBER OF BROKEN FLAKES MEAN BROKEN FLAKES PER H ECTARE

1 5.1% 4 5.3% 3 9.5% = = = = = =

MEAN WEIGHT 1 0.1g 6 .1g 3 .3g

1 26 1 19 0 .94 0 .11 6 8 0 .531

CORES TOTAL NUMBER OF CORES RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF CORES PER HECTARE MEAN WEIGHT OF CORES

= 1 6 = 0 .22 = 4 1.4g

TOOLS S CRAPERS RETOUCHED FLAKES NOTCHED FLAKES M ICROLITHS RETOUCHED BLADES

TOTAL NUMBER OF TOOLS RECOVERED MEAN NUMBER OF TOOLS PER HECTARE Table 2 .6

% OF AREA ASSEMBLAGE 5 0% 8 .3% 8 .3% 1 6.6% 1 6.6%

NUMBER 6 1 1 2 2

= 1 2 = 0 .095

The Flint Assemblage From Zone D

Zone D comprises a small area of the Corallian ridge and the adjacent areas of Oxford Clay. Activity decreased with distance f rom the Corallian ridge and all activity appears to have been on a relatively small scale. The densest single concentration of worked f lint recovered during the survey was f rom a s ingle f ield immediately to the west of Badbury hillfort ( Fig 2 .1).

2 6

0 4 1

a ) c r ) a ) • c . )c 4 1 W $ 1 • 0 • N

S 4 0 : 1

e,Q • t C f 1

2 7

Badbury H ill Examination of aerial photographs of Badbury Hill ( Fairey S urveys) revealed an indistinct group o f soil marks overlooking the Thames, immediately to the north of the hill fort. These comprised a group of segmented features; some were obviously geological while others appeared to follow an approximately circular alignment. In addition, two large ditched enclosures have also been observed to the east of the h illfort ( Edward, K . Gould, C . Miles, D & Wright, G . 1 980, 1 44). Although the outline of the soilmarks lack clarity, it was notable that virtually all the worked f lint f ound on the h ill top, which i ncluded a h igh proportion o f long f lakes, blades a nd b lade cores, c lustered within the area that the soilmark appeared to enclose ( Fig 2 .7). This assemblage cannot be compared in s imple numerical terms with that f rom the rest o f the s urvey a rea because of the exceptionally f avourable conditions under which collection took place. The f ield had previously produced a crop o f maize a fter which the ground s urface had weathered for more than six months before the surface collection took place ( compared with two to three months f or f ields o f winter planted cereals). During this time, the ploughsoil, a stone free f erruginous sand, had become a l evel compacted s urface on which a ll f lint was easily recognisable. 1 3% o f the f lake a ssemblage has a l ength breadth ratio exceeding 2 :1 and two of the s even cores r ecovered exhibited b lade s cars. I t seems probable f rom the a ir photograph and artefact evidence t hat the Badbury H ill soilmarks define a causewayed enclosure. Causewayed enclosures are f ound throughout the Upper Thames, but have h itherto been absent from the Corallian ridge. This l ed Case to s uggest that a s uitable l ocation f or s uch a s ite would b e a t the Cherbury h illfort ( Case, H . 1 986 2 7). Badbury provides a s imilar s etting a nd Case's observation that s uch a s ite s hould b e l ocated n ear to the source o f a tributary o f the Thames may b e particularly apt s ince s treams t hat f eed i nto the r ivers Cole a nd O ck r ise within 2 00 metres o f Badbury ( Case, H . 1 986, 2 7). The general distribution of worked f lint in the Vale can be described as a low density dispersal of flakes with concentrations on the scarp of the Downs, the hill tops and r idges of the Corallian beds ( Fig 2 .1). This pattern i s only partially repeated by the retouched tools which only seem to avoid areas o f Kimmeridge C lay ( Fig 2 .3). Cores and h ammerstones concentrate at the s carp f ace and i n the centre o f the Vale but the overall decline i n their n umbers i s matched by an i ncrease i n the precision with which they a re r educed. Metrical Analysis

o f

the F lake a ssemblage

Metrical analysis of a f lake a ssemblage seeks to e stablish a chronological d ivision i n the material b etween the early, narrow f lake i ndustries and those o f t he l ate Neolithic and Bronze Ages where squat f lakes predominate ( Ford, S . 1 987 b ). I t has been s uggested that this difference i s more than s imply chronological, but reflects different degrees of mobility and sedentism ( Bradley, R .J. 1 987, 1 83). I f metrical analysis i s applied to a surface assemblage, two practical problems occur. Firstly, i f an early narrow f lake a ssemblage o ccurs in the same location a s a later squat f lake i ndustry, the integrity of the former will tend to be masked. ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 5 6). S econdly, analysis o f the

28

1 0

/5 :2

/ * / * / *

9

, i i 8 i , ./2 : 1 i / * 7 i.. i . / * i . / 6 i / * •. • . // * 5 ,. . / • •4 . . / i• •• :. 1. . .• :: 5/ 4 z •8 . • . 1 . ) , i. . . : .? X/ • ' 3 i: , . ( 1 4 :A / * . : : • • . . x '. . 2 i ;*/ . . * •• B ERKSH IRE i• . / : ' • DO WNS 1 / / ./ P. CM 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0 S

.

1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CM

F ig 2 .8

1 / *

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 1 0

Metrical Analysis o f f lint f lakes f rom the B erkshire Downs ( zone A ) and Badbury H ill ( zone D ).

29

2 0

MEAN J R A

F LAKE WE IGHTS

1 5 •

•

\ •

PR I MARY

1 0

— 'SECONDARY

5 --- T ERT IARY

A ZONES

F ig

2 .9 Mean

f lake weights

f rom Zones A t o D .

contents of sieved samples of ploughsoil and comparisons of breakage rates between broad and narrow f lakes suggests that i ntact and therefore measurable examples o f the latter will be under r epresented i n a s urface a ssemblage ( Gaffney, V & T ingle M . 1 989, 5 6). The l ength/breadth s cattergrams compare material r ecovered f rom the scarp edge of the Berkshire Downs with that from the immediate vicinity o f B adbury H ill ( Fig 2 .8). I n this case i t i s possible to discern a more restricted size range at Badbury together with a t endency towards narrower f lakes. The mean f lake weights, given a s a general indication o f f lake size, show an a ssemblages composed o f small f lakes that becomes progressively more restricted ( Fig 2 .9). The p lot o f f lake thickness shows a s imilar pattern to the l ength/breadth measurements , with f lakes which are l ess than 0 .5cm a cross being a lmost twice a s common i n Zone D a s they are i n Zone A ( See Fig 2 .10). There i s also a s triking s imilarity between the composition o f Zones A and C which may well reflect the fact that they were the only areas where f lint r eduction was taking p lace i n s itu.

3 0

2 r9

NU MBERS

C o

t hicknesses

F LAKE

e t f 2

0

0

t Y 2

er. , 9

t r. t ?

0 2 N 9 e Nt z

t . ( ) L f )

0

L U

D

1 . 0

o

U " )

L i ) 1

U ' ) I C O

• J • I 7

I C O

c ; ) I ,7

1

I

L U

e

e u _

• •

0 1

CJ 7

0 1 c o 6

i n c b I ( z )

ZL I( nu ) —Z Ot i xZH

3 1

L i l & ) I — c ; ) 1 -CC L i }c o

0 & ) I c o c ' . i

L r ) c ‘ . J i

' 7

c \ I

0

c : i I ( D

i n I

,7

—

0 I

( £ )

6

L a 6 I

0

4 .

F lint

sources

u sed

f or the production o f

r etouched tools

One objective o f the Vale survey was to examine the s ources and production methods o f prehistoric f lint a rtefacts. Although t here a re n o f lint bearing deposits i n the s urvey a rea, i t was h oped t o determine whether flint was being imported in the form of nodules or f lakes f rom the Downs and whether these proportions varied in relation to distance from the source. By comparing i dentifiable non-downland f lint s ources present i n the r etouched tool a ssemblage with each o ther and with those f rom the Downs, i t would a lso be possible to distinguish the different reduction s trategies employed with these s ources. When the 9 3 r etouched tools were examined, 1 1 r easonably d istinct f lint types were identified. These were based on: the colour o f t he unpatinated f lint, the character o f a ny i nclusions within i t, the colour and texture of surviving cortex and to a l imited extent, s urface patination. There are s everal problems a ssociated with s uch a c lassification . Patination o r the l ack o f i t r esults f rom the type o f soil in which the f lint has been lying. All f lint r ecovered f rom the Downs had a cquired either a grey white o r b luish patination ( Type 4 ) whatever i ts original appearance, thus making it difficult to detect imports of non-Downlands f lint. The r ecovery o f 9 implements f rom the Vale that had been patinated in a chalky soil may be evidence o f the re-use o f t hese implements or the reworkin9 o f f lakes long a fter they had originally been knapped and discarded on the Downs. I t i s however, a lso possible that they were i ntroduced into the Vale f rom the more recent practice o f marling with Downland chalk ( Ford, S . 1 987 a , 4 ) Without detailed geological analysis, it is difficult to d etermine t he s ource o f these f lint types. F lint with cortex worn smooth by the a ction o f water can confidently be a scribed to t he r iver gravels. Other examples, s uch a s Type 6 , did not possess such an abraded cortex but were unlike anything recovered by s urface collections o f the Downs. D ESCRIPTION NO OF E XAMPLES ORIGIN Type 1 . Type 2 . Type 3 .

Pale Grey Cherty F lint P ale Grey/Brown F lint Light Brown/Greeny g rey with water worn cortex Type 4 . White/Grey/bluish patination Type 5 . L ight brown f lint with mottled Brown patination Type 6 . Orange/Brown f lint with o ccasional cherty i nclusions, p itted brown cortex. Type 7 . Grey Brown f lawless f lint Type 8 . Mottled white patination Type 9 . Mottled grey f lint Type 1 0.Mottled Brown Grey f lint Table

2 .7

Classification r etouched tools

of

2 4 3 2 9 2

? ? R iver Gravel The Downs ?

6 8 1 2 2 0 8

flint

? ? ? ? The D owns ? types

utilised

for

Few o f the tools retained sufficient cortex to allow such an attempt at classification and of those that did, only three examples were made f rom pebbles o f h eavily abraded gravel f lint ( Table 2 .7, Type 3 ). A s ignificant problem i n this a nalysis was the f act t hat i t could o nly b e applied t o one third o f t he tools. All the retouched examples o f Type 6 f lint for instance, were made o n t ertiary f lakes. Only three examples could confidently be identified a s nonDownland f lint; Types 1 , 3 and 6 . Type 1 was a f lawless grey slightly cherty flint which had been used to make a large

32

F ig 2 .11 The d istribution o f the group 6 material

3 3

retouched blade and a broken s craper. Those made f rom Type 3 , the heavily abraded river gravel, were an unsystematically r etouched s craper made on a primary f lake and two retouched squat f lakes. There were no examples of Types 1 or 3 in the remaining assemblage of cores and f lakes. Type 6 was represented by 1 8 f lakes and 4 cores a s well a s 6 retouched tools. i .

The Type

6 a ssemblage

FLAKES

TOTAL NUMBER

PRIMARY FLAKES S ECONDARY FLAKES TERTIARY FLAKES

MEAN WEIGHT

7 7 1

4 .1g 1 5.1g 6 .0g

TOTAL NUMBER OF FLAKES RECOVERED TOTAL NUMBER OF BROKEN FLAKES TOTAL NUMBER OF CORES RECOVERED MEAN WEIGHT OF CORES

= = = =

1 5 3 4 8 7.7g

TOOLS 2 x SCRAPERS; 1 x RETOUCHED ? BLADE SEGMENT; 1 x RETOUCHED CORE FRAGMENT; 1 x MICROLI TH; 1 x BROKEN IMPLE MENT ( ? ARROWHEAD TANG). Table

2 .8

The composition of

the Type

6 a ssemblage.

A more detailed consideration of this particular f lint type i s j ustified since it represents the largest and most consistently identifiable assemblage that was derived from a flint source other than the Downs. The utilisation o f this type of f lint dates f rom at l east the late Mesolithic and, a s f igure 2 .11 s hows, the material was discarded throughout the survey area. The precise location of the f lint source is unknown but it i s thought to derive from the Thames valley to the west of the survey area. Although the f lake a ssemblage i s very small, the preponderance o f small primary flakes and the high ratio of flakes to cores, suggests that this f lint type was imported in nodular f orm and trimmed o f i ts cortex to maximise the u sable material . Three o f the cores were made from small, irregular nodules while the f ourth was a much reduced blade core. With the exception of the l atter, the cores and f lakes appeared to be i nexpertly worked. In contrast, the retouched tools were almost all finely made, suggesting that they had been imported to the area a s f inished products. Only the microlith and the retouched core f ragment were completely intact. The two scrapers were both worn, one exhibiting pattern of wear that was observed on the Downs, while the arrowhead tang and the retouched blade segment were broken ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 4 6). The l atter, which was so thin as to be translucent, seems to have a parallel from a late Neolithic pit at Barton Court Farm ( Whittle, A 1 986. I II 4 .3.1). This a ssemblage indicates that f rom the l ate Mesolithic a t l east, some of the flint which was discarded in the Vale derived from sources away f rom the Downs. The contrast between the workmanship of the implements and the debitage could result from the importation of f inished tool being s uperseded by the importation of the raw material itself, but this cannot be convincingly demonstrated f rom f ieldwalking a lone i i.

Excavated Assemblages

f rom the Vale

and Upper Thames.

To determine whether the exploitation of certain f lint sources was a localised phenomena or part o f a more widespread pattern o f resource exploitation, f lint artefacts from nearby excavated

34

monuments were reviewed. Finds from excavations of the Abingdon Causewayed Enclosure by Leeds and Avery as well as a more recent surface survey by Holgate were examined to determine whether any of the 10 flint types listed in Table 2.2 were present and if so, in what form. At least one example of each of each flint type was noted in the excavated and surface assemblages from Abingdon. The most notable difference was a much greater proportion of Type 1 flint including 3 examples which were flakes from polished axes. A polished axe fragment made from a creamy grey flint was also noted in a late neolithic pit at Barton Court Farm (Whittle, A. 1986, III 4.3.1). In contrast, all the implements in the Passmore collection from Liddington, 15km to the west of the survey area, derived from the same downland source, with the single exception of a possible Type 6 barbed and tanged arrowhead

Flint is apparently rare in the gravels of the Abingdon area, becoming more common downstream from Dorchester and ubiquitous in the Ch1ltern outwash gravels to the south east of Wallingford (Case, H.J & Whittle, A . 1982, 35). Analysis of the cortex of 120 cores from the Abingdon causewayed enclosure showed that 65% derived from the ChalK Downs while 1D% derived from river gravels. The remainder had no cortex and therefore could not be sourced. A similar analysis of 166 flake scrapers showed 48% to have been made from Down�and flint while 15% were made from river gravels. It was therefore assumed that while some flint from local deposits and outwash gravels was utilised, more than 75% of the flint discarded at the site was obtained from the Chalk, 9 miles to the south (Case, H.J & Whittle A. 1982, 35). At Cassin9ton, fourteen kilometres to the north of Abingdon on the opposite bank of the Thames, two Grooved Ware pits yielded a total of 137 waste flakes and 10 cores. Only two cores and one flake were identified as deriving from local gravels (Case, H.J & Whittle, A. 1982, 125). The assemblage from the linear ditches and the southern enclosure at North Stoke, fifteen kilometres to the s o u t h o f Abingdon within the C h i l t e r n o u t wash, was predominantly composed of gravel flint (Case, H.J & Whittle, A. 1982, 73).

The proportions of Downland to river gravel flint observed from these three excavated assemblages, increase in relation to the distance from the Chiltern outwash (Case, H. & Whittle A. 1982). The site at North Stoke has the greatest proportion of worked gravel flint while it is also the nearest to the sources of downland flint. There does not seem to be any evidence that downland flint was used for the manufacture of particularly fine implements. The exploitation strategy appears to be one in which local materials of "inferior" quality were used in preference to a superior material that could be found a kilometre distant. ZONE A

TOTAL

B C D

Table 2 . 9

DOWNLAND FLINT

GRAVEL FLINT

12 3 16 6

4 5 10

37

19

UNKNOWN

7

3 10

The s o u r c es of flint cores based o n su rface cortex.

Analysis of the cores from the Vale surveys fiel dwalking assemblage Vale was carried out using the same criteria. Superficially, these figures tend to confirm the picture from Abingdon, with approximately two thirds of the cores originating from the downs. Since however Zone A is on downland it should be 35

excluded f rom this analysis. The pre-eminence o f downland f lint i s then maintained only by the cluster of cores in the west o f Zone C . I n terms of the area over which they were recovered, river gravel f lint appears much more widespread, presumably deriving from the same sources as those available to the Abingdon s ite. I n this case however, the Chiltern outwash g ravels a re over 3 5 k ilometres d istant f rom the s urvey area. I t i s difficult to a ccount f or the exploitation o f an i ndifferent f lint source which i s 3 5km distant while a adequate s upply i s available only a f ew k ilometres to the south. Although s ourcing o f the datable implements i s inconclusive s ince a ll o f them are without cortex, one of the microliths i s made from Type 6 , a n on-downland f lint. Gravel f lint may have been a more important source during the Mesolithic/Early Neolithic when its procurement could have been embedded within widely based s ubsistence s trategies. This would certainly concur with t he view o f Mesolithic a ctivity i n the region being based around r ivers such as the Thames and the Kennet. The absence of Mesolithic material from the Downs suggests that the area remained p eripheral throughout t his p eriod 5 . A Comparison Vale

of

the

Assemblages

from

the

Downs

and

the

One stated aim of this chapter was to compare and contrast prehistoric activity i n the Vale and on the Downs. One way i n which this can be achieved i s by comparing the results o f the Vale and the Maddle Farm Survey areas ( Gaffney, V & T ingle M . 1 989). i .

The Maddle Farm S urvey

Approximately 4 0,000 pieces of worked f lint were recovered by the Maddle Farm Projects survey of the Downs. Flint was distributed throughout the survey area, although f ive zones characterised by unusually h igh concentrations o f f inds, were l ocated. Three o f these areas were designated a s " Quarry" s ites, a lthough no evidence exists to imply that the procurement o f f lint went beyond the exploitation of seams exposed in the h illside. The " Quarry" s ites were characterised by the presence o f l arge numbers o f primary and s econdary f lakes together with numerous cores and hammerstone fragments. Hammerstones and r etouched tools were not present i n l arge n umbers. Evidence f or p rimary f lint working was a lso f ound o n the upper s lopes o f dry valleys s uggesting an ad hoc exploitation o f f lint exposures over a wide a rea. A s well a s " Quarry" s ites, a concentration o f r etouched t ools was found 2 00 metres west of the Lambourn Long Barrow. Scrapers a ccounted for 6 8% o f t he r etouched tools o f which more t han 5 0% s howed s igns o f wear a nd breakage. The f ifth area was l ocated o n a h illtop 5 00 metres t o the s outh west o f the main Seven Barrows group. Here, a concentration of flakes and retouched tools without s ignificant numbers o f cores or hammerstone f ragments, was intensively collected and a very small sample of t his area was excavated. A s ingle group of three subsoil features was f ound. These included, a shallow l inear f eature 3 .5 metres i n l ength a t the end o f which was a small s ubcircular f eature. Both o f these contained examples o f worked f lint and s oil s amples f rom the l inear feature included carbonised plant remains o f Emmer Wheat and Barley. Two metres f rom t hese was a p it that contained a sarsen saddle quern, two sarsen rubbing stones, a broken s craper a nd a f lint k nife with " sickle g loss". Carbonised c ereals were also found in the upper f ill of the pit a s well a s a Bos incisor. Although prehistoric pottery was recovered f rom the l inear f eature, i t was not precisely datable.

3 6

Analysis of six off-site assemblages located on the Downs, s uggested that changes i n the composition o f the f lake a ssemblage could be related to the availability o f f lint. Where f lint was present, but n o i ntensive exploitation was taking p lace, primary , s econdary and tertiary f lakes occurred on average i n ratios o f 3 : 5 : 2 . The mean f lake weights declined consistently from primary f lakes weighing approximately 2 0 grammes to s econdary flakes at approximately 1 7 grammes and tertiary flakes of approximately 1 0 g rammes. I n areas o f Lower Chalk i n which there i s n o n aturally o ccurring f lint , primary, s econdary and t ertiary f lakes were f ound i n r atios o f 2 : 4 : 4 with a mean weight range o f 1 0, 1 1 and 8 grammes r espectively. i i).

The Vale

The character of Downland f lint distribution i s clearly very different f rom that o f the Vale. S ince there i s a lso no naturally o ccurring f lint i n the vale " Quarry" s ites would not be expected and nothing was f ound to compare with those o f the Downs. Where f lint core r eduction o ccurred i t was on a very small s cale and the mean f lake weights did not show similar patterning to the evidence f rom t he D owns. This evidence o f l ocalised changes i n r eduction s trategies on the Downs has two significant implications. Firstly it has been suggested that off-site f lint distributions may result from debitage being i ncorporated i nto domestic waste; i f s o, the f lint s catters could r epresent manuring s catters ( Foard, G .R. 1 978). I t i s implicit i n t his s uggestion that the a ssemblages would have to be a homogeneous mixture with no consistent changes in their composition a nd the ratios o f f lake types. S ince this i s not the case, i t s eems more l ikely that the deposition o f f lakes and retouched tools arises from a much more complex process of procurement, use and discard, linked to relatively l ocalised d ifferences i n the availability o f raw materials. Secondly, l ow densities o f f lint in the Vale together with the continued exploitation o f r elatively distant f lint s ources could be t aken a s evidence o f restricted a ccess to the f lint sources o f the Downs. I f, however, one compares the composition o f the Lower Chalk a ssemblages on the Downs with those o f Z ones B and C i n the Vale, marked s imilarities can be observed ( cf. Tables 2 .2 & 2 .3). I t would appear that s imilar r egimes o f l ithic r eduction and conservation were practised on the Downs a s well a s in the Vale, i ndicating t hat s pecific exclusion o f t he Vales population f rom the resources o f the Downs does not appear to have taken p lace. i ii).

C hronology o f

implements

f rom t he Downs

a nd t he Vale.

The d istribution o f datable r etouched implements f rom the Downs suggests that early activity was focused in two dry valley bottoms on the M iddle Chalk, perhaps a s a r esult o f their easier access to water supplies. There was a particularly close correlation between the distribution o f polished axe f lakes and the s iting of Long Barrows within these valleys. Implements dating f rom the l ate Neolithic to the Early B ronze Age were f ound a cross a much wider area, a lthough they continued to avoid areas where C lay with F lints was the predominant s oil t ype. Because the r etouched implements were l ess f requent i n the Vale no comparable patterns can be observed. A comparison of mesolithic s tray f inds f rom the Corallian r idge a nd t he B erkshire Downs indicates a marked preference for the f ormer over the l atter ( cf. Briggs , G . Cook,J & Rowley, T .1986,173 a nd R ichards , J .C. 1 975, 2 8). I t i s therefore likely that the microliths r ecovered by the s urvey represent evidence o f a ctivity t hat was based o n the Corallian r idge or the Upper Thames valley rather

37

than the Downs. Carbon dates a nd environmental evidence f rom the Lambourn long barrow suggests that the Downs were an open landscape from the Early Neolithic. The presence of Coral Ragstone built into the chamber o f Waylands Smithy ( see below) s uggest that some f or o f e conomic i nterdependence or e xploitation o f the Vale from the Downs had begun by the early part of the third millennium b .c. The datable implements f rom t he Vale are dominated by Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic types while those u sually a ssociated with the Late Neolithic and E arly Bronze Age are notably absent, although Bradley has shown that such material has been found elsewhere in the Vale ( Bradley, R & E llison, A . 1 975, 1 91). The majority o f r etouched implement are a s expected, s crapers and simple retouched f lakes which could date f rom virtually any period before the I ron Age. 6 .

The prehistoric

exploitation o f

non-flint

s tone

r esources.

Four pieces of worked Sarsen were recovered f rom the Vale, a quern f ragment i n Zone A ; a unsystematic core and a f lake in Z one B and a systematically worked core i n Zone C . The extent to which any s tone s ources i n the Corallian B eds were utilised i s a matter of speculation. I t i s very doubtful whether worked or imported stone o ther than F lint or S arsen would be recognised i f i t occurred in the f orm of individual pieces. Experience f rom fieldwork in Brittany has shown that while examples of prehistoric implements made f rom s tones with i rregular f laking characteristics such a s Quartz and Schist have been found in excavated contexts, they are seldom r ecovered by f ieldwalking i n areas with prehistoric monuments, where those stone types are common. There are two known examples of stone from the Vale o ccurring i n excavated prehistoric contexts o n the Downs. P ieces o f Corallian l imestone and Greensand were found in the ditch t erminals a t Rams H ill and Coral Ragstone was u sed to construct panels of dry s tone walling in the spaces between the sarsen s labs a t Waylands Smithy ( Heard, M .J. 1 975, 1 30; Atkinson R .J.C. 1 965, 1 32 ). 7 .

The Excavation o f

i .

The Longcot

a possible R ing D itch a t Longcot,

Oxon.

Enclosures

The three c ircular enclosures a t Longcot, were f irst o bserved by Passmore a nd s ubsequently confirmed b y a erial photography ( Allen, G . W. G & Passmore, A . D. 1 935). I nitially they were l inked to a similar group of forty one enclosures at Highworth, seven kilometres to the west. These were formed by a low bank of varying d imensions o utside a ditch a nd were f requently l ocated on heavy clay land close to a water source. Because o f a their superficial resemblance to the Knowlton Circles, they were a t f irst thought to b e a group o f h enges. I t was a lso proposed that they r epresented the temporary cattle enclosures of a d isplaced prehistoric tribe, f orced to take refuge i n the unoccupied Vale ( Allen, G . W. B & Passmore, A . D. 1 935, 1 13). Excavation of one circle produced Roman pottery, but t his probably originated f rom a Romano-British building that was l ocated immediately to i t's ( Allen, G .W.B & Passmore, A .D. 1 935, 1 17). One of the Highworth Enclosures at Stratton St Margaret has recently been excavated and the documentary evidence f or these monuments r eviewed ( Gingell, C .J & G ingell J .H. 1 981). No direct written references were f ound for the excavated s ite or for any o ther o f the H ighworth C ircles. I t was s uggested that t hey could r epresent s tock enclosures s ince there a re f requent r eferences i n Medieval Court Rolls to the impounding of large numbers of animals ( Gingell, C & Gingell, J . 1 981, 6 6). The excavation at Stratton St Margaret revealed a shallow, i rregular d itch profile with no evidence o f s tructural r emains or 38

post holes a t the centre. Approximately 1 00 s herds o f Medieval pottery, including Minety ware, were recovered from the lower f ills of the ditch and sealed beneath the bank. Thus the enclosure appeared to date from the thirteenth or fourteenth c enturies. ( Gingell, C .J & G ingell J .H 1 981, 6 8). A lthough s imilar i n appearance t o s ome o f the H ighworth g roup a nd s haring the characteristic l ocation on K immeridge Clay adjacent to a water source, there was no direct evidence that the enclosures a t Longcot were o f a s imilar age or f unction. They appeared as probable or certain round barrows on a recent distribution map of prehistoric sites in the Vale and are c urrently classified a s Bronze Age ring ditches on the County S ites and Monuments Record ( Bradley, R .J & E llison. 1 975, 1 88; O xfordshire SMR PRN's 7 011, 7 012, 7 013).

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the Longcot enclosures

I t was decided that the correct function of one of these e nclosures could be e stablished with a combination o f l imited e xcavation a nd g eophysical s urvey. A r esistivity s urvey was made

3 9

o f the two adjacent enclosures on the western ed9e o f the modern s ettlement o f Longcot, PRN 7 011 and 7 012 ( See F ig 2 .12). Due to adverse soil conditions all that could be determined from was the presence o f the slight circular ditch which was also visible to the naked eye. i i.

The Excavation

P late 6 .

The excavation trench o f

r ing d itch

7 011.

A s ingle trench measuring 5 metres by 2 metres was excavated a cross the bank and ditch o f the northernmost e nclosure ( Plate 6 & F ig 2 .12). Having de-turfed the area to be excavated ( context 1 ), t he s ub-soil ( contexts 2 & 4 ) was trowelled c lean r evealing a band of clay, ( context 3 ), within the supposed area o f the ditch, running parallel to the bank ( See Fig 2 .13; Plate 7 ). Context 3 proved to be an upstanding wedge of natural clay protruding t hrough the d isturbed s ubsoil o f contexts 2 a nd 4 ( See F ig 2 .13). All material f ound within the excavated area was kept i ncluding s tones. No pottery was recovered a nd the only evidence o f h uman a ctivity f rom the s ite came f rom two o f the s tones f rom context 2 which s howed s igns o f burning. The excavation was accompanied by documentary research. All relevant maps in the County Records O ffice dating back to the seventeenth century, were examined for the enclosures to determine whether they were accompanied by any relevant f ield n ame, t itle or i nterpolation. One e state map dating f rom t he l ate 1 8th century recorded the area in detail but did not show anything at the locations of the three enclosures ( BRO. D /EE1/P2). Throughout the n eighbouring a rea, n umerous examples o f i rregular enclosures s imilar to PRN 7 012 a nd regularly c ircular enclosures s imilar to PRN 7 011 were shown and s everal o f these were described as " Ponds". This i s somewhat ironic s ince, in their original i nterpretation a s prehistoric cattle enclosures, wooden ramps were proposed, to move s tock i n a nd out. " In t his water-logged country o f wet clay, a rainy s eason would make an entrance, worn down by the f eet of cattle and men, a p erfect channel f or water to pour i nto the central area" ( Allen, G .W.G & Passmore A .D. 1 935, 1 14).

40

0

0

4 1 F ig 2 .13 S ection through enclosure

0

P late

7 .

D etails

o f

a f eature within t he trench.

Whether this enclosure i s a pond or a pound i s to some degree irrelevant given that the object of the excavation was to determine whether or not it was a Prehistoric ring ditch. Although the evidence i s not conclusive, on balance i t appears unsafe to regard i t a s s uch and more l ikely that i t dates f rom t he Medieval period o r l ater. 7 .

Conclusion

One f eature common to the various a ssessments of prehistoric activity on the Berkshire Downs i s the suggestion that the evidence f or Mesolithic a ctivity would appear i f a sufficiently exact survey was made ( Bradley, R . & Ellison, A . 1 975, 1 90; R ichards, J .C. 1 978, 2 9). This v iew was based, not unreasonably, o n the overlap i n carbon dates between t he l ate Mesolithic s ite, Wawcott I II, 3 310 + 1 60 b c ( BM 4 49) a nd the Lambourn l ong barrow 3 415 + 1 80 bc ( GX- 1 178) together with environmental evidence t hat s uggested the l atter to have been constructed i n a c leared l andscape. I t was a ssumed that i f the proliferation o f s ites i n the Kennet valley was the result of detailed fieldwork, a s ystematic examination o f t he Downs would a lso r eveal evidence o f Mesolithic activity. Unfortunately, the Maddle Farm project failed to recover any material, with the exception of two prismatic b lade cores, that could b e described a s Mesolithic. I t was s uggested that this resulted f rom the combination of a n over l arge s urvey grid and a tendency f or blades and therefore b lade tools to be under represented i n the f ieldwalking record ( Gaffney, V & Tingle, M . 1 989, 5 9). This argument now appears l ess convincing i n the l ight o f the Mesolithic material f rom t he Vale. The assemblage of Type 6 f lint implies that sources o f late Mesolithic f lint included material derived f rom river gravels. Increased evidence for the efficient use of flint i s to be

42

expected with increasing distance from the flint source (Care, v. 1982, 277). A similar phenomenon seems to occur in the Vale where Blade cores are found only in the northern end of the survey area (Fig 2.2). None of these blade cores however, originated from the Downs. Thus while the model may well hold good, it does so only in relation to sources of gravel flint associated with the Thames Valley to the north west, not to the nearest and most obvious source of flint on the Downs.

Evidence from such a wide area makes it possible to test some of the assumptions made concerning the exploitation of flint by prehistoric societies . Before metal was widely available metals, flint represented the only widely available material capable of producing an effective cutting ed9e. Flint is thus assumed to be a valuable commodity which could in some circumstances have been traded or exchanged. It was recently proposed that Neolithic communities resident on the Downs could have exchanged flint for goods and services such as grazing rights in the Vale (Case, H.J. & Whittle, A.W.R. 1982, 1). Flint collection on the Downs was also suggested as an occasion at which members of numerous descent groups might assemble, facilitating the construction of corporate monuments, such as Waylands Smithy (Case, H.J. & Whittle, A.W.R. 1982, 4). The hill forts of the Berkshire Downs were seen as reflecting the continuing prestige of lineages that controlled supplies of flint (Case, H.J. & Whittle, A.W.R. 1982, 6) •

While this model of exploitation is usually associated with rare stone types and exotic implements, it is debatable whether it can be applied to a resource such as downland flint. For flint to retain such a value, it would be necessary strictly to control access t o the source and wor king of the raw material. Fieldwalking on the Downs has shown that the exploitation of flint exposures was extremely widespread and that there were few locations at which flakes or tools were absent (Gaffney, V & Tingle M. 1989, 45). The production and use of a stone resource directly by its consumers indicates that restricted access to the resource was unlikely (Torrence, R.T. 1986, 84).

Torrence has also suggested that when a stone resource is so wides�read that the cost of controlling access to it exceeds any benefit that this may bring, the products of the source can be controlled by restricting the knowledge and skills required for manufacturing. This can result in the specialised production of implements and the creation of a network of middlemen traders offering services such as the production of finished tools (Torren ce, R . T . 1 9 8 6 , 8 4 ). E ven allowing for the f>.OOr chronological definition of fieldwalking results, there is little evidence of any form of specialisation on the Downs. Here, flint working appears to be a widespread, unspecialised, expedient exploitation of a common and not especially high quality resource. In the Vale there is a higher percentage of broken tools and unretouched flakes testifying to a greater intensity of use, but there is little evidence to suggest the importation of specialised flint products from the Downs. In both areas, implements with secondary working are predominantly end scrapers and flakes with small amounts of retouch. The only evidence for conservation of raw materials is the use of blade technology but this only appears with flint that had not originated from the Downs.

43

CHAPTER THREE LATER PREHISTORY Throughout the considerable body o f published work concerned with the l ater prehistory o f southern England, the f irst millennium B C i s s een a s a period o f f undamental change. Population growth and c limatic deterioration a re l inked to a lterations i n l and u se, l eading to a n extensive r estructuring o f t he l andscape ( Robinson, M . 1 984, 1 ). The Vale o f t he White Horse l ies between the Wessex chalk and the upper Thames valley, both of which have been studied intensively. A contrasting picture emerges with Hill f orts dominating the s ettlement and l and-use o f Wessex while the upper Thames valley i s characterised by a more d ispersed a nd l ess h ierarchical o ccupation. ( Cunliffe, B 1 984 ; Miles, D . 1 982). 1 ).

E nvironmental change

I t i s widely acknowledged that during the late Bronze Age the c limate in Britain became colder and wetter, though there i s l ess agreement a bout the e ffects that this deterioration had o n agriculture and population ( Robinson, M . 1 984, 7 ). Molluscan evidence from Wessex suggests that the open landscapes of earlier periods continued with an increasing density of settlement. At the same time there is evidence for the r eorganisation o f the s cale a nd s tructure o f the l andscape with the construction o f l inear d itches, enclosures a nd h illforts. In the upper Thames valley, there appears to be a similar population g rowth and i ncreased density o f o ccupation s ites. I t has been suggested that these were not s imply a collection o f self sufficient mixed farms but were units within a larger o rganised g roup ( Robinson, M . 1 984, 5 ). C limatic changes possibly i n conjunction with l and c learance in the drainage basin l ed to r egular s easonal f looding i n the Thames f lood p lain by the l ate I ron Age. Although there i s l ittle e nvironmental evidence f or the Vale at this period, i t seems improbable that it would remain unaffected by t he changes taking p lace t o the north a nd s outh. 2 ). Later prehistoric immediate environs i ).

sites

in

the

survey

area

and

it' s

H illforts

None of the hillforts in or near the survey area have been s ystematically excavated with the exception o f U ffington Castle ( Fig 3 .1). This was f irst i nvestigated by Martin Atkins i n the 1 850's though f ew details o f the work s urvive, but i t has more r ecently been partially excavated by the Oxford Archaeological Unit as part of the White Horse Hill Project. A section was excavated at a pre-existing breach in the rampart revealing s igns of a t l east three construction phases. Evidence f rom the original ground s urface which had been s ealed beneath the bank indicated that the hillfort had been constructed on open g rassland ( Palmer, S . 1 989, 2 ). S ituated 3 km f rom the South East corner o f the s urvey area are t he two concentric enclosures on Rams H ill ( Piggot, C & P iggot, S . 1 940; Bradley, R .J & E llison, A . 1 975). The larger o f these dates from the fourth century BC and i s thought to be an unfinished h illfort ( Piggot, S & P iggot, C .M. 1 940, 4 75). The hillforts at Badbury Hill and Little Coxwell referred to a s Lysons Camp) have produced l ittle i n dating evidence o ther than s tray f inds o f I ron Age

44

( sometimes the way o f a nd Roman

•

a >

I 0

•

7 . c r ) c o

45

N

\ N

\ N

P late

8 .

The ramparts

o f U ffington Castle overlooking t he Vale.

pottery ( Cotton, A . 1 960, 4 4). Hardwell Camp i s a s ubstantial earthwork o f banks and ditches f orming an i rregular oval which was considered s ufficiently a typical to b e excluded f rom the l ast published review of Berkshire hillforts ( Cotton, A . 1 960). I t o ccupies a n unusual position on the f ace o f the s carp a lmost a t the f oot o f the ridge, one kilometre to the west of U ffington Castle. Although its location would make the site virtually undefendable, this alone should not disqualify it f rom being considered a hillfort. Recent work by Bowden and McOmish has suggested that some hillforts may be l ocated to f ulfil a ceremonial role which renders them ineffective as defensive s tructures. S cratchbury, l ike Hardwell Camp, i s s ited so f ar down a h illside that the whole o f the i nterior i s visible f rom the o utside ( Bowden, M & McOmish, D . 1 989, 1 3). Part o f an enclosure approximately 1 00 metres a cross, has been o bserved o n a ir photographs o f the a rea immediately to the west o f Great Coxwell ( SMR. PRN 1 2043). The cropmark i s s ituated on top o f a l ow promontory that e xtends f rom t he Corallian r idge a nd i s p erhaps s ignificantly named, Bury H ill ( Fig 3 .2). Two hillforts in the Vale to the east of the survey area, B lewburton and Cherbury have been excavated but the l atter has o nly b een published a s an i nterim r eport ( Bradford, J .P.S. 1 940, 1 3-20). B lewbury appears to h ave been constructed a s a u nivalate earthwork about 3 00 BC on the site of a previously abandoned small village or f armstead. This s ite was i tself deserted until the ramparts were refortified at some uncertain date and o ccupation continued until the i st century AD when the h illfort seems to have been destroyed. The site remained deserted throughout the Roman p eriod b ut was u sed l ater a s an Anglo-Saxon c emetery.

46

The escarpment of the Berk s hire Downs forms p art of the northernmost extent of the Wessex Chalk uplands and as such it is seen as an important socio-political boundary. Hillforts on the Chalk escarpment such as Segsbury, Uffington, Liddington and Barbury and to a lesser extent those on the Corallian Ridge at Badbury, Little Coxwell and Cherbury utilise similar opposing natural boundaries (Fig 3.1). It is possible that these hillfort groups represented two opposing lines of demarcation but at present it is unclear whetber these sites were constructed or occupied at the same time. E x cavations at Rams Hill and Blewburton have both shown phases in which the earthworks were uncompleted or abandoned for considerable periods.

There is evidence from other archaeological sources such as pottery and coinage which confirms the diversity of the two areas. It has been suggested that a desire to emphasise a common ethnicity within Wessex particularly in frontier zones, is reflected in the allegiance to particular ceramic styles and motifs (Cunliffe, B. 1984, 13). Barrett identifies a "Style Boundary" in the early 7th century B.C. between the pottery of Rams Hill which has much in common with material from Liddington, Lowbury and Waylands Smithy and that from Blewbury which has affinities with material from the river terraces around Oxford (Bradley, R.J & Ellison, A. 1975, 111). Numismatic evidence from the late Iron Age suggests that the area formed the tribal boundary between the Atrebates and the Dobunii since the Vale lies between the two mutually exclusive areas of their coin distributions. This also appears to be confirmed by references in Ptolemy's Geography (Selwood, L. 1984). ii). Settlements

The absence from the survey area of any Iron A9e occupation sites less substantial than a hillfort is clearly illusory. Late Iron Age features have been found sealed beneath Roman occupation on at least two downland sites (Rhodes, P.P 19 54; Gaffney, v & Tingle M. 1989, 194). A curious group of features, two of which were almost 2 metres deep, were sectioned by a chalk pit at Knighton Hill near Uffington Castle. A brief investigation by the Piggots produced charcoal, Sheep and wild boar bones together a small collection of Iron Age pottery (Piggot, s. 1927). An early Iron Age ditch and bank were also found cutting through the edge of one of the quarry ditches at Waylands Smithy (Atkinson, R.J.C. 1965, 132 ). More recently, early Iron Age settlement features were recorded during a rescue excavation on the Shrivenham by­ pass at Watchfield (Chambers, R.A & Scull, c. 1984).

iii). Linear Ditches

Linear ditches, are among the numerous prehistoric earthwork preserved on the Berkshire Downs. They are formed by a bank and ditch, most of which have a V shaped profile and are approximately one metre deep and up to two metres wide (Ford, s. 1982, 1). Though one example is over 15 kilometres in length the majority extend over less than 1.3 kilometres except for the so­ called "long linears" (Ford, s. 1982, 1). Most of these are situated along the tops of the ridges that separate a series of dry valleys formed by redundant tributaries of the river Lambourn (See Fig 3.3). They represent the earliest surviving form of land division in the area, based on dry valleys and extending in some cases up to the edge of the scarp. Most linear ditches date from the late Bronze Age and Iron Age and are thou�ht to have defined tracts of land as part of a widespread reorganisation of downland agricultural resources. Limited environmental evidence suggests that they were associated with a continuing pastural economy rather than arable agriculture which seems to have been 47

H i l l fo rt L inear D i tch

C% 1 J F F ING TO N: .C A S T L E

K i lome tres

F ig

3 .2

Linear d itches

o n the B erkshire Downs

i ntroduced during the Romano-British period ( Ford, S . 1 982, 1 61 7). The relationship between the l inear d itches and s o-called Celtic f ield systems i s now subject to considerable r evision a fter excavation has suggested Roman origins for many of the field systems ( Bradley, R & Ellison, A . 1 975; Bradley, R & R ichards, J .C. 1 978; Ford, S . 1 982 Bowden, M . e t a l Forthcoming). 3 ).Finds

f rom the

s urvey

In common with other f ieldwalking surveys, little data was recovered that could f irmly be dated to later prehistory ( Fig 3 .3). Only 2 2 s herds o f prehistoric pottery were r ecovered f rom t he Vale compared to the Maddle Farm s urvey which r ecovered 3 79 s herds f rom widespaced s urface collection, 1 23 o f which came f rom a s ingle s ite a t Weathercock H ill ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 8 8). I n contrast, the East Hampshire s urvey collected 8 9 s herds, o f which 6 4 came from the same f ield while the East Berkshire S urvey which r ecovered o nly s ix prehistoric sherds ( Shennan, S . 1 985; Ford, S . 1 987, 4 4). This i s a lmost certainly the r esult o f the susceptibility o f prehistoric pottery to disintegration r esulting f rom f rost damage. Even i n a reas o f demonstrably dense late prehistoric occupation, contemporary finds from the p loughsoil are rare. A surface collection and test pit survey conducted over an area of dense middle I ron Age cropmarks a t Clayden Pike, recovered only post-Medieval pottery ( Miles, D . 1 983). I t i s extremely difficult to d istinguish b etween pottery f rom the l ate Bronze Age and the I ron Age based o n f abric a lone ( Gaffney, V & Tingle, M . 1 989, 80). Those examples recovered from f ieldwalking i n the Vale had a f lint t empered f abric which ranged 48

,--·---6] I I I

I

: : I

I

0•

Sadbury

f?

C_j

\

\

OHill Fort /Enclosure

\ \

? Possible Site

\

G:l \

•

1

Sherd

•

2 Sherd s

�B��y HHI

[]

\

\

\

\

\

\

O

little Coxwell

\

\

\

\

V\

N

KILOMETRES

Fig 3.3 The distribution of prehistoric pottery and earthworks

49

in colour from mid to dark brown and were similar to material from from Weathercock Hill (Bowden, M.C.B et al, forthcoming). The distribution of such a small number of sherds reveals little other than a general tendency for the pottery to cluster at the northern and southern ends of the survey transect (Fig 3.1). It is only when the more durable fabrics are widely available during the Roman period that a more representative picture of the exploitation of the landscape begins to emerge. 4). Conclusion

The location and dating of the linear ditch systems of the Berkshire Downs indicate that there was a major re-organisation of the landscape at some time the second half of the first millennium B.C. There is little direct evidence to suggest how these changes might have effected the Vale though both Ford and Bradley noted the similarity between the divisions of the linear ditches and the medieval strip parishes which link both Vale and Downs (Bradley, R.J & Ellison A. 1975, 197; Ford, S. 1982, 18). The division of the Downs into land units based on individual valleys appears to match the pattern of Romano-British land use that becomes evident from the pottery distributions of the first and second centuries A.O.

50

51

CHAPTER FOUR THE ROMAN P ERIOD In recent years the study of Romano-British landscape archaeology has progressed b eyond the i nterrelation o f r oads a nd towns to detailed considerations o f economy and land u se. The nature and i ntensity o f agricultural exploitation appears much more complex than previously imagined, with evidence of widespread cultivation i n West Berkshire and the South Downs a s well a s o n the h eavier s oils o f northern E ssex a nd the uplands o f the Cheviots ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989; Williamson, T . M. 1 984). One objective of the survey of the Vale was to examine the continuity of settlement over time, f rom pre to post Roman periods and to compare and contrast this with other areas. Although continuity has been emphasised between land use and occupation of the first and fourth centuries, there i s ample evidence f rom the F en edge and the Thames valley of s ettlements disappearing or changing dramatically. Even at sites, such a s Barton Court Farm, where o ccupation was prolonged, i t may not have been continuous ( Miles,D. 1 986, 4 9). The Vale had previously yielded little evidence of Roman o ccupation a lthough i t i s within the Roman r oad n etwork a nd c lose to s everal towns, the most notable being C irencester ( Fig 4 .1). On either s ide o f the Vale, a s f ieldwork and aerial s urvey h as shown , the Upper Thames gravels and the Berkshire Downs were areas o f extensive Roman a ctivity. Although the heavier s oils o f the Vale may have been a l ess attractive prospect to RomanoBritish f armers, the idea that l arge tracts o f the countryside, could have remained relatively unexploited because of poor natural drainage seems unlikely. Much greater obstacles were overcome in the development of productive land during this period, such as the reclamation of more than 300 square k ilometres o f t idal wetlands on the Severn E stuary between the s econd and f ourth centuries A .D. ( Allen, J .R.L. & Fulford, M .G. 1 986). I t was therefore important to e stablish the nature and extent o f Roman a ctivities i n the Vale and to compare t his with the s ituation o n the Downs, r evealed by t he Maddle Farm S urvey. 1 ).

Romano-British s ites

i n t he

r egion

The Vale o f the White Horse i s s urrounded by Roman towns. To t he north west i s Cirencester ( Corinium) which i s l inked by Ermin s treet to Wanborough ( Durocornovium) while Dorchester-on-Thames lies to the south east of the Vale. ( Fig 4 .1). Although the existence o f villas o n the Berkshire Downs was , until r ecently, considered u nlikely, their presence i n t he Vale has been a pparent s ince t he end o f the l ast century ( Rhodes, P .P. 1 950, 1 6). Unlike the Maddle F arm Project, there were no k nown Roman s ettlement i n the Vale s urvey area although two substantial Romano-British buildings h ad b een d iscovered n earby a t Woolstone and Watchfield. i ).

Woolstone

The Villa a t Woolstone was revealed in 1 884, when s ubstantial amounts o f pottery and building materi al s were exposed b y the u se o f a s team p lough ( Fig 4 .2). Excavations by a l ocal a ntiquarian r evealed bath b uildings and " Oyster Tanks" a s well a s a corridor 3 0 metres i n l ength a nd two g eometric mosaics . I t was o bvious a t the t ime t hat the s ite covered a considerable area s ince a third mosaic was subsequently located 3 0 yards from the f irst two ( Anon, 1 884). An early example o f f ieldwalking s howed the nature and e xtent o f t he s ite.

52

o.

/i lm

/ c , / . z / . 2 . /. 0 / . 0 / . C / . a s / . . / .

I i \ . t ) \ \ t a r )

. \ \

\

\ * ' ,. . . . .. .

D / . C t _ / . 40 . / /.

z j

• \ • \ . • \ . • \ N .

N . N .

N .

•

( C l N . .

2 \ K i lome tres

‘ \ . ‘ . \ . ‘

zt 0t c z! t o . 1 t t i i i i

• \

5 3

C I ) C t

I -

C C

C a

7 ( / )
20

A Villa/ Building

N

KILOMETRES

Fig 4.2 The relationship between Roman and known sites.

pottery distribution

v i).

The Maddle Farm Villa

The Maddle Farm villa was located by surface collection, identified on air photographs, defined by intensive surface collection and then sample excavated ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989). The excavation located a small area of preserved structural remains which revealed evidence of two building phases. The earlier was characterised by the construction of dressed chalk walls and the l aying o f f loors composed o f crushed chalk. D uring the s econd building phase ( t he chalk f loor was cut i nto by packed post holes and a f ooting o f large sarsens was bonded to the existing chalk wall. The d iameter o f t he post p ipes ( c. 1 4cm) does not s uggest a s ubstantial addition to t he building but t he appearance o f l imestone roofing f ragments within the post packing i ndicates possible re-roofing, with materials imported f rom the Vale. The chalk f loors, once worn, were then covered by l ayers o f broken s arsen and coarse chalk p ieces , the latest o f which appeared to utilise sherds of storage jars as a f loor s urface. The s arsen wall f ootings away f rom the f irst phase chalk walls were not a ssociated with made up f loors. The s econd phase may therefore have been an ancillary, non-residential addition. There was l ittle evidence o f hypocaust h eating or mosaic f loors b eyond 1 1 f ragments o f f lue t ile f rom t he excavation a nd 1 1 p lain tesserae f rom the intensive surface collection. ( Gaffney, V & T ingle M . 1 989, 9 1). 2 ).

Romano-British

f ieldwork i n the Vale

Prior to this survey , three l imited f ieldwalking projects had t aken p lace i n the Vale o f the White H orse, a t K ingston Bagpuize, Frilford a nd S tanton i n the Vale ( Miles, D . 1 982, 6 3). The parish o f K ingston Bagpuize o ccupies a s trip o f l and between the Thames and the Ock ( Fig 4 .3). A f ieldwalking project in the limited arable available i n the parish revealed f ive areas o f RomanoB ritish " activity", comprising two villas and subsidiary s ites ( Miles, D . 1 982, 6 3). Fieldwork at Frilford centred around a k nown I ron Age/Romano-British temple s ited where the Roman road connecting Mildenhall ( Cunetio) with Alcester crosses the r iver Ock ( Figs 4 .1 & 3 ). A combination of f ieldwalking and aerial s urvey revealed evidence for a small town o f approximately 3 0 h ectares and an amphitheatre over 6 0 metres i n diameter. A late Romano-British and Early Saxon cemetery have also been f ound, containing at least 3 59 graves ( Hingley, R . 1 985, 2 06). The valley of the Frogmore Brook, a tributary of the River Ock s ituated to the west o f Stanton i n the Vale, has a lso revealed evidence o f Roman a ctivity ( Fig 4 .3). Much o f the valley had been common pasture until r ecent p loughing r evealed evidence o f " an a lmost ( Miles, D .

i ntact 1 982,

Romano-British 6 3).

l andscape"

A l arge v illa, two small buildings a nd t hree a reas i nterpreted a s native s ettlements were located, a s well a s evidence f or a l arge Romano-British s ettlement under the modern v illage o f S tanford. G iven t he amount o f evidence recovered f rom each o f these small s cale s urveys, i t i s l ikely that many more Romano-British s ites existed i n the Vale and the k nown s ettlements do not reflect a true d istribution o f Romano-British a ctivity. The poor v isibility of cropmarks, Medieval agricultural disturbance and the high proportion o f modern pasture a ll l imit the known s ites to those uncovered by agricultural excavation a nd b uilding work. The f act that an amphitheatre was only recently discovered at Frilford g ives some i dea o f the l evel o f visibility and s ite preservation i n t he Vale ( Hingley, R . 1 985).

56

B ERKSH IRE DO WNS

the White

K ILOMETRES

L U

Q -

0

•

5 7 , c

c o

r z 4

2 ). i .

The pottery recovered f rom f ieldwalking. Pottery Density

The most numerous Romano-British artefact type that was r ecovered from widespaced f ieldwalking i n the Vale was pottery. Compared with the Maddle Farm Project, the amount of Romano-British pottery recovered appears to be r elatively modest ( Fig 4 .4).

2 50

2 00

1 50 DO WNS VALE

1 00

• • •

. ...

2

3

4

5

6

7

. ...... ....................

8

9

1 0 1

1 2

1 3

1 4

.. .

1 5

1 6

1 7

1 8

1 9 2 0 2 1

S HERDS F ig

4 .5

The f requency and density Roman pottery

58

o f

h ectare

squares

containing


2 0

S e t tl emen t

G rea t Coxwe l l •

••

\ G

a rdwe I I \

\B

\

\

\

I lKnighton

\- --- - - - -1 . — _ ._ ._ ._ . Comp ton B eauchamp

\ • — •-• — •—

\ A

2 K ILOMETRES

F ig 6 .2 The d istribution o f M edieval p ottery w ithin t he s urvey a rea, d ivided i nto a reas f or a nalysis.

8 7

f reeholders o f Eaton charged that he had unjustly enclosed more than 2 00 a cres o f arable thus depriving t he f reeholders o f their r ights o f common. H e was a lso s aid to have impounded 4 00 o f the f reeholders sheep and overstocked the common l and with s heep o f h is own, a ll o f which i t was claimed, threatened the destruction o f the village. Although the source o f this information renders i t somewhat unreliable, i t does s uggest that widespread changes i n l and u se were taking place in this area at the beginning o f the s ixteenth century which had profound implications for the n eighbouring s ettlements. 5 ).

Archaeological evidence

i ).

D istribution o f Medieval

f rom the

s urvey a rea.

pottery r ecovered

f rom f ieldwalking

Before this survey was conducted, surface collection on the adjoining downland had not produced s ignificant amounts of post Roman pottery ( Richards, J .C. 1 978; Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 2 46). Subsequently, the East Berkshire Survey recovered 1 001 sherds of Medieval pottery most of which derived from river gravel and a lluvium while the l owest densities came f rom areas with a c lay s oil ( Ford, S . 1 987, 4 7). I n East H ampshire, the area examined more c losely resembles the Vale s urvey area in that i t too examined a geological s equence f rom chalk uplands to a clay vale. The bulk o f t he Medieval pottery i n east H ampshire was a lso l ocated around s ettlements s ituated on Greensand and Gault Clay a t the f oot o f the s carp ( Shennan, S . 1 985, 4 ,92 & 9 5). Vale

East B erks

Total s herds

1 197

1 001

2 08

Mean Sherds p er H ectare

2 .74

0 .47

-

Mean Sherds p er 1 00 metres

0 .685

0 .117

Table 6 .1 Medieval pottery densities with those of the East Berkshire and ( Ford, S . 1 987; S hennan, S . 1 985)

East H ants

0 .105 f rom the Vale compared East Hampshire Surveys

A total o f 1 197 s herds o f medieval pottery was recovered f rom wide spaced s urface collection i n the Vale s urvey area making up t hirty f our percent o f the total pottery a ssemblage. To a ssist i n t he analysis o f this material, the s urvey area was divided into n ine areas ( A to J ) each, one k ilometre w ide ( See F ig 6 .2). At the s outhernmost end o f the Vale s urvey ( Area A ), on t he s carp face of the Berkshire Downs, pottery densities were low. This was not surprising since, extensive f ieldwalking on the Downs had f ailed to locate any s ignificant amounts o f Medieval pottery, a total o f ten sherds having been recovered f rom 8 60 hectares during the f irst seasons f ieldwalking ( Gaffney, v & Tingle M . 1 989, 2 46). To the west o f the Maddle Survey area a t B eedon Manor Farm, a medieval manuring s catter was identified by f ieldwalking in advance of a gas pipeline. I t appears to have covered an area of less than 3 hectares and might therefore r esult f rom plough damage to a s hrunken s ettlement ( Richards, J . C . 1 978, 7 6). At the j unction of the Upper Greensand with the Gault Clay, numerous springs appear forming tributaries o f the river Ock ( Area B ). Dense pottery s catters comprising 6 4% of the total medieval pottery a ssemblage were located here, a ssociated with s ettlements a long the springline a t Compton Beauchamp, Knighton a nd H ardwell .

88

AREA

B

( See F ig 6 .2)

Knighton,

1 0th 1 1th 1 2th 1 3th . ..1.... . ..1.... 4 ..27... 2 88

Compton B eauchamp a nd Hardwell.

C ENTURIES 1 4th 1 5th

1 6th

1 7th

1 8th

1 9th

2 .49... 3 •

•

..1... ..13.

AREA E .

.92.. . 1.

Longcot

1 0th

1 1th

1 2th 1 0

1 3th 1 12

1 4th

1 5th

1 6th

1 7th

1 8th

1 9th

1

..12.. 7

. i .... 1 ...137 .43 . 34

AREA H .

Great Coxwell

1 0th

1 1th

1 2th 1 3th 1 .1.... 1 2

1 4th

1 5th

1 6th

1 7th

1 8th

1 9th

1 1 27 . 8. ..22 . 17 TABLE 6 .4. The Chronological a nd n umerical d istribution o f s herds around settlements in the Vale survey area ( Excluding grass t empered pottery). s ixteenth centuries only to i ncrease again in the post-Medieval p eriod. Accepting that there i s l ikely to be distortion brought a bout by variations in the s upply o f datable pottery types, i t s eems n evertheless appropriate to question what these f igures r epresent. There i s no evidence o f a decline i n s urface pottery to mirror the decline i n the human population that o ccurred i n the fourt eenth century. Documentary evidence h as s hown that some o f the s ettlements in the s urvey area were s everely r educed by the B lack D eath b ut i ts overall e ffect on the e conomy was n either universal or l ong l ived ( Bolton, J .L. 1 980, 2 09). Population decline l ed t o

8 9

Pottery densities decline rapidly in Area C and in Area D they are virtually non existent. This i s almost certainly r esults f rom a combination of topography and soil type. Prior to the introduction of modern agricultural practices and drainage techniques, this area would have been unfit for arable and suitable to be grazed only for limited periods because o f their tendency to f lood. Consequently, the need to use yard manure to maintain its fertility would not have been great, although this area may have been intensively utilised a s meadow ( See F ig 7 .3). AREAS

( SEE

F IG

6 .2)

A

B

C

D

E

F

4 0

6 2

5 5

3 5

3 9

8 3

4 4

4 3

3 6

1 0

7 63

6 5

3

2 08

9 1

6

4 5

6

MEAN SHERDS PER HECTARE

0 .3

1 2.3

1 .1

0 .1

5 .3

1 .1

0 .1

1

0 .2

PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL ASSEMBLAGE

0 .8%

5 %

0 .2%

1 7%

8 %

0 .5%

4 %

0 .5%

HECTARES PER AREA SHERD NO'S

TABLE i i).

6 .2

6 4%

Medieval

G

H

pottery density within the

Pottery distribution and density activity

a s

an

J

survey a rea

indicator o f

e conomic

Table 6 .2 plots the sherd densities from the whole s urvey area broken down into Areas A to J ( see Fig 6 .2) while Table 6 .3 shows the g eneral density and date o f sherds and Table 6 .4 r efines this information for the area around the three groups of s ettlement; Area B , Knighton Compton Beauchamp and Hardwell; Area E , Longcot and Area H Great Coxwell. It is obvious that the greatest concentration of surface pottery dates f rom the twelfth to the f ourteenth century. I t reaches a hiatus in the f ifteenth and AREAS

( SEE

F IG

6 .2)

A

CENTURY OF ORIGIN 1 0th 1 1th 1 2th 1 3th 1 4th 1 5th

7 2 -

1 5 3 21 5 2 1 -

2 3 4 3 -

3 -

1 0 1 25 1 9 5

2 9 2 9 2 -

1 -

1 1 3 4 1

1 2 -

MED

1

1 95

2 6

-

4 9

4 9

5

2 6

-

0 .02 0 .30 0 .09 0 .02

-

MEAN SHERD NUMBERS 1 0th 1 1th 1 2th 1 3th 1 4th 1 5th Table

0 .17 0 .05 6 .3

0 .02 0 .08 5 .17 0 .84 0 .02 -

0 .04 0 .62 0 .05 -

Simplified

PER HECTARE

0 .08 -

0 .26 3 .20 0 .49 0 .13

chronological

9 0

BY AREA

0 .02 0 .11 0 .34 0 .02 -

0 .02 -

distribution

of

pottery.

labour shortages and some land being untenanted for a short period but this would not necessarily have led to a lon9 term contraction of arable production which would register in the surface pottery record.

Documentary sources suggest that the early sixteenth century was a period that saw the contraction of settlements at the foot of the Downs in response to the increasing demands for sheep pasture. The reduction of surface pottery densities are evident around all the settlements in the survey area, not just those which were deserted during this period. This indicates that it is the change of agricultural regime which is reflected rather than a general indication of settlement density or economic activity. Area B for instance continues to exhibit significant levels of post-Medieval pottery despite the fact that by this time the settlements in the area had shrunk to a single farm and hamlet.

There is a significant dichotomy in that the settlements with the greatest densities of twelfth to fourteenth pottery surrounding them, such as Bardwell, Compton Beauchamp and Knighton were the ones that experienced the most desertion and contraction. In contrast, th e settlements with lower surrounding pottery densities appear more successful, indeed Great Coxwell is the site of one of the largest Tithe Barns in England (see Ch7, Plate 13). This may indicate that during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, tnose settlements with the greatest commitment to arable agriculture were less successful than those which had already a significant proportion of land given over to sheep. It may equally show that the settlements at the foot of the scarp were constrained in the areas available for arable cultivation. When economic changes encouraged wool production their arable was combined with the pasture available on the Downs, forcing the settlements to contract or fail. iii). Vessel forms recognised from the surface assemblage

The surface assemblage from the Vale was too small and to dispersed for much information to be derived from a study of the vessel forms. Only 111 sherds out of 1197 were identifiable as shown in Table 6.5. Unsurprisingly, cooking pots make up over 60% of the total of which 62% are associated with the three settlements in Area B. The next most common vessel form is the shallow bowl which is thought to have associations with the manufacture of milk products (McCarthy, M & Brookes, c. 1988, 110). This mal be evidence that milk processing was concentrated at the foot o the downs in Area B. AREA (SEE FIG 6.2)

A

B

C

15 8

2

D

E

F

VESSEL FORM

JAR 1 SHALLOW DISH JUG COOKING POT DISH BUNGHOLE PITCHER TRIPOD VESSEL BOWL STRAIGHT SIDED CUP PITCHER TABLE 6.5

42 3

1 1

2 2

1 2

9

2 9

1

2

1 1

Vessel forms by area

91

G

H

J

4

1

iv).

Medieval pottery

f abrics

i n the Vale S urvey area.

All post Roman pottery recovered by this s urvey was i dentified by Maureen Mellor as part of a much wider study of the ceramic traditions of the region. A total of 7 66 sherds, 6 4% of the entire medieval a ssemblage , could be a scribed to a r ecognised fabric group. The f abric codes which appear in this section derive f rom work on material f rom Oxford and therefore carry t he prefix OX, except for two examples from Abingdon which are prefixed AB. AREAS

( SEE F IG

6 .2)

A

FABRIC CODE OX291 OX292 OX414 OX517 OX518 OX519 OX520 OX521 OX523 OX524 OX577 OXAC OXAM OXAQ OXBB OXBF OXBX OXR ABA ABB

1 1 2 1 1

2 1 1 6 1 3 4 7 2 70 8 6 1 2 1 5 1

_ 2 1 7 7 1 1

_ 3 -

3 2 7 1 2 1 1 3 4 1 1 1 2 2

9 1 1 3 2 8 1 1 1 1 6 1 7 2 2 1

1 2 1 2 -

1 3 5 1 4 3 9 2 2 1 -

1 3 2 -

KEY. OXAQ - SAVENAKE. OXR - ST NEOTS. TABLE

6 .5

OXBB

- M INETY.

OXAM & OXBX - BRILL.

The d istribution o f Medieval

f abric

types.

Fig 6 .3 shows the geographical distribution o f the known k iln sites that are represented in the pottery a ssemblage and the percentage o f the identifiable f abric types that each of these made up. I t i s evident that the most popular f abric, a lmost half the identifiable sherds, derives from kilns in the Savenake f orest, twenty f ive k ilometres s outh o f the s urvey area. Twenty five kilometres to the east is a group of kilns in north Wiltshire a t Minety which supply 1 6% o f t he total. The f urthest group of kilns s upplying s ignificant amounts o f pottery to the survey area were those around Brill and Boarstall i n north west Buckinghamshire. To determine whether there were any s ignificant changes to the composition the assemblages were compared from three areas immediately adjacent to s ettlements i n the s outh, the centre a nd the north o f the s urvey area. These consisted o f 4 81 s herds f rom Area B ( Compton Beauchamp, Knighton a nd H ardwell), 9 1 s herds f rom Area E ( Longcot) and 4 9 sherds f rom Area H ( Great Coxwell). Over half the i dentifiable sherds f rom Area B were o f the f abric OXAQ ( Savenake) while a further third originated from Minety ( Fig 6 .4). The third l argest group, ABB derives f rom an a s y et unknown source but i s s imilar to OXBF ( Mellor, M . P ers Comm). The l argest

92

9 3

remaining s ingle group are two Brill/Boarstall group o f k ilns.

Fig

6 .4

f abrics

that

The proportion of identifiable Medieval pottery a ssemblage

originated

fabrics

f rom the

within

the

The a ssemblage from Area E , a lthough much smaller, has several points of s imilarity with Area B . OXAQ ( Savenake) remains the dominant fabric and the relative proportions of Minety and

94

Brill/Boarstall are. approxima�ely the s�me. The inciqence of ABB declines sharply while there is a much higher propor�ion ?f three miscellaneous types OX518, OX517 and OX291. OX518 is Limestone tempered and found more frequently in assemblages from Glouces­ tershire (Mellor, M. Pers Comm). OX517 is predominantly flint tempered and OX 291 quartz tempered.

The final assemblage from Area H continues the trends observed in Area E with the J?roportions of S av e n a k e , M i n e t y a n d Brill/Boarstall declining at similar rates while the fabrics OX518, OX291 and OX517 become more popular.

v). A comparison with Medieval pottery from Excavations at Newbury (Berks).

The results of excavations in the town centre of Newbury, 30km from the survey area, appear as yet only in interim form (Vince, A.G. 1980). Preliminary analysis of the pottery indicates that this mainly urban assemblage has both similarities a n d differences, from the Vale's fieldwalking assemblage. A total of 40 different Medieval and Tudor pottery fabrics have been identified at Newbury (Vince, A.G. 1980, 24). The earliest pottery, hand made sand and flint tempered vessels, dated from a pre-urban phase in the tenth and eleventh centuries when the site was part of field system. The flint tempered fabrics in the early phases at Newbury are similar to OXBF and ABB which are then replaced by OXAQ (Mellor, M. Pers Comm). In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when structural features first appeared on the site, the assemblage began to include cooking pots and glazed tripod pitchers, a characteristic that continued and developed from thirteenth to the mid fourteenth century. At this time, Surrey White Wares first occurred and rapidly become the the most common pottery on the site. Some types of imported pottery which are common in the Vale survey assemblage are rarely encountered at Newbury where only two sherds of Minety Ware were recovered (Vince, A.G. 1980, 24). This sugQests that although Newbury and the Vale are town and country in relatively close Eroximity, they operated within differing economic spheres. While pottery evidence suggests that the Vale was part of an economic constituency that took in areas to the south, west and north, the presence of Surrey Ware, Reigate stone and even �erhaps the occurrence of iron smelting at Newbury suggest links with the southern home counties. vi).

Medieval pottery and Ridge and Furrow.

In order to further test the assumption that the Medieval pottery distribution was representative of past manuring practices, a comparison was made between the surface pottery concentrations and areas with ridge and furrow. There were several problems associated with such a proposal. Apart from small paddocks situated immediately adjacent to modern settlements, almost all ridge and furrow in this part of the Vale has been recently ploughed away. Fortunately, a substantial amount was recorded on aerial surveys of the Vale in the early 1960's but even on these photographs, the current land use had often obscu red any surviving earthworks. Secondly, the earthworks that survived until recently represented the final phase of arable agriculture in this area which may have occurred in the mid sixteenth century ( Astill, G & Grant A.198 8 ). The pottery distribution with which they are to be compared however dates predominantly to a p e riod between one and three centuries earlier. Thus, a comparison is onl¥ valid if areas of arable have remained largely unchanged. In this case, the constraints of topography to the south of the survey area and soil drainage to the north are likely to have created such conditions 95

SHERDS P ER HECTARE

0 4

MOATED S ITE

•

1- 5

•

6 -1 0

• • •

CHURCH SETTLE MENT EXTENT OF R IDGE AND

1-20 2 1-30 3 1-40

•

FURRO W

4 1-50

•

5 0+

/

• \

\

•

3

HARD WELÜ • . 1 ,

\

\ \ • _ ,

,

KN IGHTON

N COMPTON BEAUCHAMP •

o

8 00

•

METRES

F ig

6 .5

The d istribution o f the D owns.

r idge

96

a nd

f urrow a t the

f oot o f

MOATED S ITE CHURCH MOUND SETTLE MENT r SETTLE MENT / EARTH WORK,' R IDGE AND FURRO W

\

COMPTON BEAUCHAMP

8 00 METRES

F ig 6 .6

The detailed d istribution o f M edieval pottery a t t he f oot o f t he Downs

9 7

A s F ig 6 .5 s hows, there are s ubstantial concentrations o f r idge and f urrow immediately to the north of Compton Beauchamp and Knighton a lthough there a ppears to b e a t l east o ne area i n which i t i s a bsent. At H ardwell, t here i s r idge a nd f urrow to t he east and west of the s ettlement. I ts absence from the area to the north o f the moated s ite i s unlikely to be the r esult o f l ater destruction s ince the earthworks of several house plots have s urvived. F ig 6 .6 s hows those areas around the s ettlements which were available for f ieldwalking and the density of Medieval pottery that was r ecovered. The i s a coincidence o f h igh pottery densities with ridge and f urrow and low densities where such earthworks a re absent s uggest. This confirms the a ssociation o f i ntensive manuring with a rable cultivation and s uggests t hat t he areas to the north and south of the settlements were either p ermanent pasture a nd meadow ( Fig 6 .6). 6 ).

C onclusion

The s urvey a rea i n the Vale produced s ubstantial quantities o f medieval pottery a ssociated with s everal deserted and shifted s ettlements. The date r ange o f pottery a round s ettlements s uch a s those at the foot o f Downs confirms the charter evidence f or their Anglo-Saxon origins. I n contrast, a s imilar ceramic date range, i ncluding unusually h igh densities o f material f rom the eleventh century, was found around the settlement o f Longcot which i s first mentioned in taxation returns of 1 294. This confirms what i s a lready known, that the l ate appearance of a s ettlement i n t he h istorical r ecord n eed h ave n othing to do with date o f i ts f ormation Away f rom the s ettlements t he pottery d istributions a s i n e arlier p eriods, result f rom centrally based manuring practices. I n one case it is even possible to compare off-site pottery distributions with the evidence of arable field systems. E lsewhere i t was possible to s how that pottery avoided a reas o f l ow l ying, poorly drained Gault Clay which have only r ecently b een i ncorporated i nto c ereal production. O n a more g eneral l evel, i t was possible t o l ink variation i n t he s urface pottery distribution reflect l ong term changes in the economy of Medieval England. This was reflected the massive increase of surface pottery dating from the twelfth to the f ourteenth centuries. The e ffects o n agriculture o f population decline in the mid-fourteenth century were, according to documentary sources, varied a nd s evere only i n the s hort term. The rapid decline in pottery densities that occured in the f ollowing centuries would s eem to have derived f rom a r eduction i n arable a creages a s a r esult o f growth in the cloth trade. Thus i t i s possible t o l ink f ieldwalking r esults w ith documentary evidence to derive a broader perspective of the date, g eographical e xtent a nd t he n ature o f change i n h istoric p eriods.

98

CHAPTER S EVEN THE POST-MEDIEVAL P ERIOD

1 ).

I ntroduction

Multi-period l andscape s urveys o ften confine their examination o f post medieval material, r easoning that l ater periods can b e f ully studied through documentary sources alone. This view is i ncreasingly being challenged, a s the work o f the Centre f or East Anglian studies has convincingly demonstrated. There i s a lso a specific role for the post-Medieval surface record in the methodological advancement o f landscape s tudies in that later historic periods provide more opportunities to test theories d erived f rom f ieldwalking data against more complete documentary records than are available from the Medieval period. Surface s catters are o ften l inked to specific f arming practices, but i t i s only in later periods that f irst hand accounts o f these practices s urvive. 2 ).

S ettlement

a nd population

Most parishes i n the Vale cover between 1 000 and 3 000 a cres ( 400 to 1 200 hectares) although some are much larger and contain s everal s ettlements. The parish o f S hrivenham covered over 8 000 a cres ( 3200 hectares) with six townships, including Longcot, Fernham and Watchfield, which all had between 3 0 and 5 0 households in the Hearth Tax of the 1 660s. The same returns s howed Compton B eauchamp house to be o ne o f t he e ight h ouses i n t he entire Vale to possess more than twenty h earths ( Cottis, J . 1 984, 1 5). B y 1 640, only Abingdon, Wallingford, Faringdon a nd Wantage h eld official weekly markets. Abingdon was the principal town combining j udicial a nd administrative f unctions with a position o n t he Thames and the r oad f rom London t o G loucester. The market cross was constructed i n the l ate s eventeenth century and during the early eighteenth century, markets were held throughout the week. I n contrast, Faringdon and Wantage h ad a s ingle market h eld o n Tuesdays and Saturdays respectively ( Cottis, J 1 984, 2 0-22). Trade in Faringdon was was greatly increased during the s eventeenth century f ollowing improvements to the navigability o f t he Thames. Cheap water transport to the markets o f London f rom centres like Reading and Henley allowed the eastern Vale to supply the capital with barley and malt f rom the same period. Direct a ccess to London via the Thames f rom o ther parts o f the Vale was impossible i n t he early s eventeenth century. Although i t was navigable between Lechlade and Oxford, the river was impassable between Oxford and Dorchester. This deficiency was f inally remedied when three locks were constructed between 1 624 and 1 635, primarily to meet Oxfords growing demand f or cheap coal. Empty coal barges r eturned to London with s tone and t imber a s well a s agricultural produce such a s malt f lour and cheese. The Thames above Oxford remained difficult to n avigate b ut until t he construction o f Turnpike roads a nd the canal era i n t he l ate eighteenth and early nineteenth century, improved river navigation provided considerable advantages to f armers in the Vale. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the B erkshire and Oxfordshire canal was a lready operating, it was e stimated that 2 -3000 tons of cheese p er annum were being s ent to London f rom B uscot Wharf, four k ilometres north of the s urvey a rea ( Cottis, J . 1 984, 2 9-31; Mayor, W . 1 809, 3 75). I t was possible f or f armers i n the Vale to deal in more remote l ivestock markets such a s those o f the Cotswolds and Wiltshire.

1 00

F AR INGDON

GREAT COX WELL

a L ITTLE COX WELL

F ERNHAM

L

e COT

VATCHF IELD

WOOLSTONE

KN IGHTON •

F AR M CANAL

Q

BU ILT UP AREA

K ILOMETRES

F ig 7 .1

The d istribution o f post -medieval s ettlements within the s urvey area 1 01

a nd f arm

At I lsley, 2 5 k ilometres s outh west o f the s urvey area, t he s heep fair established in 1 620 had become by the mid eighteenth century, one o f the l argest in the region s elling approximately 4 00,000 animals each year. 3 ).

Agriculture

i ).

I ntroduction

i n the Vale:

A documentary

s tudy.

The f irst systematic survey o f the agriculture o f the county o f B erkshire was conducted at the turn o f the nineteenth century ( Mayor, J . 1 809). A detailed account was made of the farming practices that were current in the Vale ranging from crop varieties and rotation, l ivestock s pecies and h usbandry a s well a s descriptions o f the soil types, their f ertility and manuring practices.

P late

9 .

Lynchet t erraces

o n the

s carp

f ace

o f

the Downs.

The best l and i n the Vale was considered to be in areas where chalk h ad been washed o nto the Upper Greensand a t the f oot o f the Downs, though there was l ittle o f this land available. Farms commonly s traddled a t l east two different types o f l and type s o t hat a balance o f mixed f arming could b e a chieved. The s oil t ypes in the west of the Vale are generally less suited to arable agriculture but are i nterspersed with restricted deposits o f exceptional f ertility s uch a s the f erruginous b ar ns t o t he s outh o f Faringdon, the brown earths a t Shrivenham and Watchfield a nd the Greensand at the f oot of the Chalk Downs. The Chalk s carp i tself was often too s teep to plough without the creation o f l ynchet t erraces ( See P late 9 ) but barley was g rown o n the thin downland s oils o n the d ip s lope. Unlike the eastern end o f the Vale where drift deposits cover the clays and ameliorate the problems associated with poor drainage, the western end o f the Vale was s een a s a traditionally pastoral zone in Mayors survey . This i s i llustrated in the

1 02

F ig 7 .2

T he d istribution o f p ost-medieval p ottery w ithin t he s urvey a rea. 1 03

incidence of large stocks of cheese and malt which appear in probate inventories from the mid-seventeenth to the mide ighteenth centuries. Almost a ll i nventories r ecording more than one ton of malt are in the east o f the Vale while a ll o f those r ecording more than 1 ton o f cheese are in the west ( Cottis J . 1 984, 1 3). Thus, agrarian practice in the Vale was sharply d ivided between arable i n the east a nd pasture i n the west. i i).

Farm s izes

Although large e states composed o f i ndividual f arms existed in the Vale before the Norman conquest, it is only since the s eventeenth century that sufficient documentary evidence has s urvived to show how they f unctioned a s economic units. Even t hen, there i s much l ess evidence concerning the l arge n umber o f i ndividually owned, small f arms compared to the g reat e states. The size of farms in the Vale varied greatly. In the early eighteenth century, some of the largest were those that incorporated areas of Downland pasture. At Odstone on the northern edge of the survey area one f arm covered 1 ,200 a cres ( 480 h ectares) though i n the mid eighteenth century, most o f the l and was r egarded a s r ough pasture . The average r ental value o f the whole farm was six shillings per acre compared with approximately twenty shillings per a cre f or neighbouring dairy f arms o f 8 6 and 1 18 a cres ( 34 and 4 7 h ectares) i n the Vale only ( Cottis, J . 1 984, 1 39). Throughout the Vale, the amount o f productive l and within each f arm was enlarged during t he s eventeenth a nd e ighteenth c enturies a s a n i ncreasing use o f crop r otation r educed the amount o f l and l eft fallow. In addition there was a tendency in the early e ighteenth century, f aced with agricultural depression, f or the major l and owners to i ncrease the s ize o f t heir t enant f arms. I n some cases this was accompanied by l oans f rom the landlord to ensure that the l arger holdings were e fficiently s tocked. This was p artly to a ttract wealthy t enants a t a t ime when f arm i ncomes were l ow, but principally to r educe the n umber o f f arm b uildings t hat the l and owners h ad to maintain ( Cottis, J 1 984 , 152). I n about 1 870, a s eries o f maps were commissioned to a ccompany a n e state book, detailing the boundaries and land use o f tenant farms belonging to the Craven estate ( BRO. D/ EC E33). They r eveal an increasing proportion o f ploughed l and on t he Downs e xploited f rom f arms s uch a s Odstone a nd i ts n eighbours ( see F ig 7 .1). This was largely the result of the intensified cereal and fodder production that followed the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars coupled with the increasing use of imported artificial f ertilisers. The e ffects o f p loughing on previously upstanding archaeological monuments was n oted a t the t ime; " They are mad for p loughing, these b lockhead f armers...They would plough and g row mangold wurzel o n t heir f athers g raves. The tenth legion probably marched along this road. S everus and Agricola h ave r idden a long i t... . There i s t hat i n that o ld mound and d itch which the best t urnips a nd o ats i n the world cannot r eplace. There a re h igher things i n this world s ir, than i ndifferent o ats a nd damned bad T urnips". ( Thomas i ii).

Hughes.

The S couring o f

Manuring practices

t he White H orse.

1 857).

i n t he Vale

By the end of the eighteenth century, f armers in the Vale were practising numerous s trategies t o maintain t he f ertility o f their l and, in addition to the application o f f armyard manure. The i ntensification o f s tock r earing meant that yard dung was a pplied equally to meadows and pasture a s well a s arable land. I t was

1 04

1 05

a lso observed that much valuable l iquid yard manure was l ost through seepage and that i ts application to remote f ields was expensive and t ime consuming. ( Mayor, W . 1 809, 3 57). An a lternative to the direct application o f natural f ertilisers was through the use of crop rotation such a s the successive p lanting o f Wheat, B eans, Barley and either c lover or a f allow p eriod noted a t Faringdon ( Mayor, W . 1 809, 1 65). On the Downs, a rotation s uch a s Wheat, Turnips and Vetches f ollowed by Barley and Oats a s a f odder crop, emphasised the importance o f s heep. The folding of sheep, a method of manuring where animals were penned i nto a particular area and their diet s upplemented with f odder crops, was considered e ssential f or t he cultivation o f t he Downs. The Berkshire Nott , a l ong l egged s heep with a r eputation f or poor wool and indifferent meat, was particularly s uited to this r egime b eing capable o f moving b etween s ix to s even miles a day " It i s questioned by some intelligent f armers i f dung for wheat i s expended to the utmost advantage. I f. . dung i s u sed i n turnips i t i ncreases the quality. More s heep may be k ept and the natural consequence is, more dung is made" ( Mayor, W . 1 809, 1 80). Other methods of manuring included the ploughing in o f green crops a nd t he u se o f material s uch a s r ags, s oot, road sweepings, p igeon dung a nd h uman waste ( Mayor, W . 1 809, 3 64). There i s nonetheless, continuing evidence f rom post-Medieval pottery distributions that centrally based manuring was still practiced. The densities are lower than before, especially considering the i ncreased consumption o f domestic pottery during this period In contrast to the Medieval period, the surface pottery distribution concentrates a round the v illages o f Longcot a nd Great Coxwell though s ome s till derives f rom the s ettlements a t the f oot o f the s carp. By comparing the extent o f pasture a t Compton Marsh Farm ( Fig 7 . 3) with the surface pottery distribution when the area was p loughed ( Fig 7 .1), it appears that i n the Vale post-Medieval pottery s catters were a ssociated with arable agriculture. I n contrast surface pottery from the Downs was o f a much l ower d ensity and g enerally concentrated n ear s ettlement. S ince i t was k nown that l arge a reas o f downland were ploughed f rom the beginning o f the n inteenth century, i t was s uggested that manuring was carried o ut i ndirectly by one o r more o f the methods o utlined above by Mayor ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, ) . 4 ).

M edieval

a nd Post-Medieval

S tanding B uildings

i n t he Vale.

It was never the intention of this survey to carry out a comprehensive examination of even a sample of the standing buildings o f the Vale. All that has been a ttempted here i s to identify the principal building traditions o f the area and the source of materials that they u sed. This would determine i f i t was possible to detect the r emains o f s uch collapsed buildings by the s urface collection o f their construction materials. A r ecent s urvey i n East Brittany has s ought, amongst o ther t hings to examine the changing patterns o f s ettlements a cross a g roup o f f our communes u sing s ystematic f ieldwalking a s well a s exhaustive documentary s tudy. S urface collections r ecovered a wide r ange o f datable pottery a s well a s f ragments brick a nd t ile, t hough these were a lmost exclusively a ssociated with Gallo-Roman s ettlements. The s tudy o f s tanding l ater medieval buildings showed that they were constructed f rom locally derived s tone and there was no reason to a ssume that this may not have applied to earlier buildings ( Davies, W . 1 990).

1 06

F ragmen ts P er H ec tare •

1

e

2-5

•

610

•

1— M

•

> 2 0

0 K ILOMETRES

F ig 7 .4

The d istribution o f s late w ithin t he s urvey a rea

1 07

A scatter of local stone within a f ield might therefore be equally s ignificant a s evidence o f past a ctivity a s a s catter o f pottery. By comparing the l ocal geology with the s tone u sed in s tanding buildings and rock f ragments f rom excavations, i t was possible to identify stone scatters which were likely to r epresent collapsed buildings. I f r elative proportions o f c ertain types o f rock were determined, which appeared to reflect changing patterns o f building s tone exploitation, i t was even possible to s uggest their a pproximate date ( Davies, W . 1 990, 3 30). I n s urface collections around S hapwick i n S omerset, post medieval building material made up 5 0% o f a ll the f inds ( Gerrard, C . 1 989, 3 8). I t o ften appeared in discreet concentrations while o ther post Medieval material, s uch a s pottery a nd c lay pipe s tems, were more generally d istributed. This was not thought to be evidence f or the s ite o f ruined buildings s ince s late, brick and tile were f ound i n i ndividual concentrations r ather than i n a mixture that would be expected f rom building collapse or demolition. I t was suggested that while domestic refuse was routinely i ncorporated i nto yard manure, building materials might only do s o during o ccasional building o r demolition a t the f arm s ite. I t was a lso proposed that building material was being s pecifically dumped at certain locations such a gateways prone to muddying ( Gerrard, C . 1 989, 3 9). F ig 7 .4 s hows t he d istribution o f r oofing s late i n the s urvey area, which a lso b ears l ittle r esemblance to that o f post-Medieval pottery ( Fig 7 .2). i i).

Sources

o f building

s tone u tilised

i n the

s urvey a rea

The most commonly utilised l ocal building s tones i n the r egion a re Sarsen and Chalk f rom the Downs and L imestone f rom the Vale a nd t he Cotswolds. Sarsens a re f requently f ound o n t he s urface o f t he Downs i n l arge n umbers. They o ften o ccur i n large i rregular boulders but their crystalline s tructure make them difficult to shape by slitting. Consequently they are often used as a f oundation course on t imber f ramed buildings or a s a walling material f or property boundaries. Although t he Downs a re composed o f Chalk rock, only the harder a nd more compact s trata, s uch a s the g ritty l ower Chalk k nown a s C lunch, a re s uitable f or u se a s a building s tone. I t's chief a dvantage apart f rom availability, i s that i t can easily be cut into regular blocks and a lso carved where ornamentation i s required. Since Chalk i s not ideally weather resistant, Chalk buildings are often have exterior c ladding. Chalk has a lso been u sed, within l iving memory, a s a f looring material in agricultural buildings. Crushed chalk was mixed with water a nd s pread over the f loor a rea, whereupon i t was compacted a nd l eft to dry out. L imestone o ccurs on the C orallian r idge and was u sed a s a roofing stone o n h igh s tatus buildings f rom the Roman p eriod o nwards. The u se o f building materials derived f rom distant s ources was l imited, during the Medieval and later periods, to the l arger land owners including the church. At a local level this i s manifested in the use of chalk as a building stone for the churches a t Great a nd L ittle Coxwell. At 1 0km f rom the D owns this r epresented a d istance a t which s tone carting would h ave b een too costly f or most vernacular construction. Abingdon Abbey, which had estates in the western end of the Vale at Uffington, Watchfield a nd H ardwell, h ad a ccess to a w ider range o f materials through its wealth and the possession of quarries on other e states. As well a s chalk f rom Lockinge, s tone was quarried f rom Wheatly and Cumnor near Oxford and Bayworth in the Cotswolds. Some building materials were bought in such as tiles from Nettlebed, i n the Chilterns and f reestone f rom Taynton ( Bond , J 1 979, 7 1).

1 08

At Coles P its, j ust outside Little Coxwell ( See Fig 7 .1), there were until r ecently, the r emains o f over 2 70 s tone extraction pits i n an a rea o f 5 .6 h ectares. These were i nitially i nterpreted a s a village of prehistoric pit dwellings and s ubsequently a s building stone quarries. Visits to the site before it was l evelled i n 1 962 r ecorded n umerous f inds o f mill s tone f ragments but no evidence f or the date o f the workings o ther than that the name was f irst recorded in 1 687 ( Crawford, O . G.S. 1 960, 1 02). Surprisingly, no quern fragments of any description were recovered f rom f ieldwalking a lthough s everal hone s tones were f ound ( see a ppendix 2 ). i ii).

S tanding Buildings

Vernacular buildings are difficult to date from superficial examination but i t i s l ikely that f ew s tanding buildings within the s urvey area s urvive f rom before the eighteenth century. Of the k nown medieval buildings, a ll a re churches with the exception o f Great Coxwell t ithe barn.

P late

1 0.

A t imber

f ramed a nd thatched b uilding a t Woolstone.

One o f the most common vernacular b uilding t raditions i n s outhern E ngland, which i s r epresented i n the Vale, i s that o f t he t imber f ramed s tructure with either brick or wattle and daub i nfilling and thatched roof. P late 1 0 i llustrates a typical example f rom Woolstone which i ncludes a l ater brick extension. I t can a lso b e o bserved in the f oreground that s plit p ieces o f s arsen are u sed t o d elimit the property boundary. I f s uch a building were to have collapsed i t i s unlikely that i t would have l eft s ignificant evidence o f i ts presence t hat could be r ecovered by f ieldwalking. Organic material s uch a s t he thatched roof would quickly decay. Any part o f i t that might have f urther u se, s uch a s s tructural timbers, would have been salvaged. The remainder , deemed unsuitable f or r eclamation by excessive r ot or i nsufficient s ize

1 09

P late

1 1.

A Chalk a nd Limestone building a t Woolstone

could have been s old f or f irewood. The o nly material f rom s uch a building l ikely to s urvive i n the p loughsoil i s burnt c lay f rom hearths or possibly daub f ragments ( Gerrard, C . 1 989, 3 6). The

P late

1 2.

The O ld S chool

H ouse a t U ffington

1 10

F ig 7 .5

T he d istribution o f b urnt c lay f ragments w ithin t he s urvey a rea.

11

distribution o f burnt clay i n the s urvey area ( Fig 7 .5) e xhibits no obvious correlation with Medieval or post-Medieval pottery. The l ocation o f the densest concentration at a j unction o f the Wiltshire and Berkshire canal may mean that the burnt c lay i s l inked i n some way to the prolific but s hort term brick making i ndustry t hat t he canal building g enerated ( see below). P late 1 1 i llustrates a building, a lso s ituated i n Woolstone, o f dressed Chalk b locks constructed a round a massive brick c himney with l imestone roofing. The u se o f brick b efore the s eventeenth century a ppears to h ave been r estricted t o h igh s tatus b uildings s uch a s the nearby Compton House which a lso utilised c halk to f ace the i nner e levations ( Cheetham, H . 1 924, 5 23). Chalk b locks and p ieces o f sarsen were observed i n r ectangular patches when the s ite o f the deserted settlement at Odstone was p loughed ( Brookes, J . 1 982, 5 38). Plate 1 2 shows the school house a t Uffington ( now the Thomas H ughes Museum), a building constructed o f dressed chalk b locks o n a r ubble b ase, with l imestone r oofing. The building i s d ated 1 617 over the door and 1 634 on a panel on the s outh wall. Note that the c hurchyard wall b ehind t he s chool i s constructed o f S arsens.

P late

1 3.

Great Coxwell T ithe B arn

P late 1 3 s hows t he T ithe b arn a t Great Coxwell which i s t hough t o date f rom the middle o f t he thirteenth century when, a s p art o f the manor o f Faringdon, i t belonged to the Cistercian Abbey o f B eaulieu i n Hampshire. I t i s 4 6.3 metres l ong, 1 3.4 metres wide and 1 4.5 metres h igh at the r idge and constructed o f Cotswold s tone with l imestone roofing. The interior, P late 1 4, r eveals that the roof i s s upported by oak t imbers 6 .8 metres l ong o n 2 metre h igh s tone pads. Considering the s ize o f the building and t he s tatus o f i ts builders i t i s possible that the t imbers were imported a s well a s the b uilding s tone.

12

P late 4 ).

1 4.

The

i nterior o f Great Coxwell T ithe Barn.

The Wiltshire a nd B erkshire Canal

A s ignificant change to communications took p lace i n the s urvey a rea during the post-Medieval period with the completion o f the Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal in 1 810. The canal l inked the Thames a t Abingdon w ith t he Kennet a nd Avon canal n ear Trowbridge and included several branch canals such as that serving Faringdon, t erminating a t Longcot Wharf. The e conomic impetus f or its construction came from the development of a canal link b etween the Kennet a nd Avon a nd a g roup o f over t hirty collieries around Radstock in Somerset. Apart from coal, agricultural produce was a lso carried, though 8 0% o f the traffic o n the canal moved f rom East to West w ith most boats r eturning empty. I n 1 837, the total o f 6 6,751 tons principally o f the f ollowing.

o f

S omerset Coal O ther Coal Corn a nd S tone Manure S alt S undries ( Figures Table

f rom Hadfield,

7 :1.

C .

Goods carried Canal i n 1 837

goods

were

carried composed

4 3,642 9 65 1 4,884 1 ,578 1 ,550 4 ,132

1 969). on

the

Berkshire

and

Oxfordshire

S ince most of the trade on the canal was composed of Somerset coal, the impact o f the canal on the archaeological record i s unlikely to be great, or notably different f rom the e ffects o f the G reat Western Railway t hat s ucceeded i t. Although t erminating in the survey area, the goods unloaded at Longcot were

1 13

transported by road to the nearby market town of Faringdon. Although the canal was eventually l inked to the river Thames, powerful groups in Parliament r epresenting coal suppliers f rom the n orth east o f England prevented the s upply o f Somerset coal f rom reaching the markets o f London and the south east. Thus traffic on the canal was unable to develop and eventually the project f ailed. When the canal was built, s everal million bricks were r equired for the construction o f locks, bridges, wharfs and ancillary buildings, an estimated 4 million being used in the section between Melksham and Caine a lone. Demand was s uch that a s eries o f brick yards were e stablished a s the canal progressed, t he l ast output of one yard being used to construct the kilns of i ts s uccessor. One o f t he l argest o f these was a t Longcot, p roducing a lmost 6 million bricks between 1 805 a nd 1 809. S urprisingly, t he only definite evidence o f this a ctivity that has s urvived i nto the archaeological record i s the derelict canal itself which f ollowed clay deposits where possible a nd thus could s upply i ts own brick works with raw materials ( Plate 1 5). The burnt clay concentration next to the canal j unction ( see Fig 7 .4) may b e s ignificant a s may the l arge numbers o f brick f ragments f ound throughout the survey area ( not i llustrated) however they are impossible to a ccurately provenance o r date. 5 ).

C onclusion.

I t i s o nly i n the post-Medieval p eriod t hat o ne b egins t o s ee t he complex interplay between factors such as technology, communications, markets a nd t enure which i nfluenced the e conomic l ife o f the r egion. I t b ecomes possible to explain why f arms were a certain s ize and s hape; how and what they cultivated and why this changed over t ime. I f n othing e lse, t his s hould warn a gainst over-simplifying the e conomic l ife o f earlier p eriods which o ften o ccurs because no s imilar documentation s urvives. There a re a lso lessons to be taken concerning the taphonomy of the surface a ssemblages. Changing practices o f manuring which produce f odder crops rather than the direct application o f yard manure s evered the link between widespread surface scatters and arable a griculture. The r eappearance o f e xtensive p loughing o n t he D owns was a ccompanied o nly by l ocalised i ncreases pottery d ensities. I t might b e expected that t he appearance o f major production o r d istribution centres s uch a s brickworks, s tone q uarries a nd canal t ermini would l eave t heir mark o n t he a rchaeological r ecord. T he f act that they do not i s, i n this case, b ecause the goods that were e ither made o r distributed f rom these centres were moving into different economic spheres. Little of this material was i ncorporated i nto f armyard waste which eventually entered the surface a ssemblage and was thus a ccessible to a f ieldwalking project.

14

CHAPTER E IGHT CONCLUSION 1 ).

L andscape archaeology a nd s urface

s urvey

For centuries, people have collected objects which have been turned up by the plough, but until recently, their value a s a source o f i nformation about the past was not considered great. Conventional archaeological excavation a fforded a low p riority t o unstratified f inds s ince they p layed l ittle part in e stablishing the chronological sequence o f a s ite. At the same t ime, many f ieldwalking projects adopted aims and methods which produced l ittle more than unstructured a rtefact collections. Fieldwalking i s, or should be, the systematic collection of archaeolo9ically significant material from the surface of p loughed f ields. Systematic collection i nfers that a s urface g rid i s a ctually l aid o ut i n the f ield s o that collection u nits can b e precisely l ocated. I f widespaced collection i s employed i t i s vital that the f ieldwalking runs are o f a known, preferably a s tandard l en9th, evenly s paced a nd l ocated within an e stablished f ramework ( in this case the Ordnance Survey's 1 :2500 hectare grid). As s urface f inds are unstratified, the provision o f s ome sort of grid with which their location can be recorded i s crucial. I t i s o ften a s important to be a ble to say where o ne i s not f inding artefacts a s to give an accurate location for the densest concentrations of material. Unsystematic collection f requently produces interpretations based on impressions gained i n the f ield. These are a lmost a lways misleading. The e xpectation that surface material derives from plough damaged sites ( settlements) produces perceptions o f d iscrete artefact s catters, that are confirmed by unsystematic surface collection and incorporated into Sites and Monuments Records. Such discrete s catters o f Roman pottery and post-Neolithic worked f lint h ave been identified on the Berkshire Downs near Uffington Castle ( Hooke, D . 1 987, 1 31; Bradley, R & E llison, A . 1 975, 1 88). When systematic f ieldwalking was conducted in this area, no such concentrations were found ( Gaffney, V & Tingle M . 1 989, 4 5 & 2 11). Archaeologically significant material includes all man made material, a ll n atural material that i s n ot local to t he area a nd any natural local material that i s distributed on the f ield s urface i n a n unnatural way. I f a s urvey i s examining a s pecific t ime period, there i s a t emptation to collect o nly those c lasses o f material which belong to that period. This i s usually i n a n a ttempt to maximise a rea coverage and minimise the amount o f t ime expended in f inds processing. Quite apart from the f act that s urface collection can u sefully add to the s tudy of a ny period, the danger o f s elective collection i s that one will n ever k now what the uncollected material might have indicated. I f , f or instance, an area devoid of Roman pottery was located, the existence o f misleading post-depositional processes could be discounted if there was no similar dearth of prehistoric f lintwork a nd post-Medieval brick f ragments i n the area. The 1 980's s aw the beginning o f numerous projects which i ncluded substantial elements of systematic surface collection. Some a ttempted to s et a particular monument i n a context w ithin i ts surrounding landscape while others were more broadly based examinations o f a l andscape i n g eneral. The s urvey i n t he Vale o f the White Horse, a s an extension of the Maddle Farm Project, f ulfils e lements o f both t ypes o f s urvey.

16

2 ).

S ummary o f

the R esults

The earliest material that was collected by this survey was a small a ssemblage o f microliths. This demonstrated that the s urvey methodology was capable of recovering such material and thus confirmed that t he v irtual absence o f Mesolithic on the Downs was not the product of survey bias. The earliest discrete concentration of worked f lint occurred on the Corallian ridge next to Badbury hillfort and in association with indistinct s oilmarks r esembling a causewayed enclosure. A proportion o f the f lint f rom the s urvey a rea, i ncluded microliths and b lade cores, was derived f rom s ources away f rom the Downs. This s uggests that a ctivity during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic may have been f ocused towards the Corallian r idge and the upper Thames valley a lthough the presence of Ragstone f rom the Vale in the later construction o f Waylands Smithy i ndicates some contact. There are no d emonstrable a uthentic Bronze Age monuments i n the Vale s urvey area though whether this i s the result of later agricultural practices i s questionable. The earliest surviving prehistoric monuments in the western Vale are Iron Age Hill forts which cluster along the northern and southern edges. Numismatic and ceramic evidence both suggest that the Vale may have been a t ribal boundary a t this t ime but this n eed not imply that i t was a lso an unpopulated no-man's-land. F ieldwork e lsewhere i n the Vale for instance at Frilford, has r evealed extensive Romano-British settlements. The i ntroduction o f durable, mass produced ceramics into Roman Britain a cted a s a B arium Meal i n the organs o f the Roman economy i lluminating i t's a rteries a nd passage ways. I n the Vale, i t r evealed the extent to which the l andscape was open a nd exploited and f or t he f irst t ime s howed an explicit l inkage between land-use o f the Vale and the Downs. Fieldwalking of 1 792 hectares around the settlement complex at Maddle Farm had revealed widespread low density scatters of pottery which was interpreted as the result of extensive, centrally based manuring. The s ite at Maddle Farm i s composed of a small villa 750 metres south of extensive s ettlement earthworks, s ituated i n a dry valley, 4 km f rom the edge of the Downs. Surface collection revealed a carpet of pottery within the dry valley which extended north f rom around the Maddle Farm complex to the scarp face to a villa in the Vale. I t i s possible that this represents the boundaries o f a dual v illa e state which may h ave continued a fter the collapse o f Roman a uthority a nd i nfluence l ater l and d ivision. Anglo-Saxon s ettlements s eem to have spread i nto the Vale during the late f ifth century. I f grass tempered pottery i s dated b etween the s ixth a nd e ighth centuries, s ettlement a t t he f oot o f the s carp could have appeared shortly a fterwards a ssociated at least in part with a Roman villa site. More ephemeral concentrations of grass tempered pottery were found in the centre o f the Vale within 3 k ilometres o f a r ecently discovered Anglo-Saxon cemetery o f mid-fifth to s ixth century i nhumations. B y t he n inth century, e states a t the f oot o f t he Downs were f irst f ormally r ecorded i n charters. The s imilarity b etween Anglo-Saxon l and holdings and the distribution o f Romano-British manuring s catters may be s ignificant. I t may i llustrate how patterns o f l and u se i n a n a rea can r emain unaltered but this i s not t he s ame a s claiming that continuity of settlement. While documentary evidence f rom the t enth a nd e leventh centuries provide i ncreasing amounts o f i nformation concerning agricultural s ettlements i n the Vale, the bulk o f the s urface pottery derives f rom between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries. There i s no observable decline i n pottery d iscard to match the population collapse o f the mid-fourteenth century, nor was it to be expected. Agriculture during this p eriod s aw wages r ise a nd r ents f all b ut there was apparently no l ong t erm contraction o f a rable l and. The s harp decline i n s urface pottery densities i s brought about l ater

17

a s a result of the growth of the cloth trade and increasing demands f or sheep pasture. Arable agriculture did not r eturn to significant parts of the region until the early nineteenth century when growing demand, changing cultivation t echniques and improved communications began to change the f ace o f t he l andscape again. Why does the s ettlement pattern o f an area change over t ime when the s oil types and the distribution o f water r esources r emain the same. The Maddle Farm and Vale surveys have been able to demonstrate remarkable shifts in s ettlement and l and u se over a r elatively small area. The Roman s ettlement o f the Downs and the Vale comprised numerous habitations of varying social status exploiting substantial tracts of land. This changed with the decline of Roman rule and after that period, settlement concentrated i n the Vale. Here i t was centred on f ertile l and with a reliable water sources. Those settlements a t the f oot o f the Downs were able to exploit both the Vale and the chalk uplands in a way that survives to the present. Many o f these s ettlements however declined and i n s ome cases disappeared by the middle o f the s ixteenth century S ettlements are j ust one a spect o f the r elationship b etween man a nd t he l andscape. Exploitation o f a l andscape which i ncludes the variety o f s oils and topography would h ave changed through time a s perceptions of the lands potential changed ( Roberts, B . K. 1 987, 1 08). This would be in response to external economic, political and social factors s uch a s changes i n the ability to control the fertility of the land whether through increased manuring or improved drainage, the output and r elative value o f varying ratios of particular livestock or crops, changing markets, improving communications and developing patterns o f t enure.

18

APPENDIX THE UFFINGTON WHITE

1 HORSE

" Carved r udely i n the pendant s od i s s een The s now white courser s tretching o 'er the g reen" H enry James

Pye

( 1745-1813).

F aringdon H ill

Throughout this survey o f the Vale o f the White Horse, l ittle mention has been made o f the a llegedly ancient h ill carving that gives it i ts name. Debate a s to the Horse's age and f unction, based often on the most spurious evidence, began in earnest during the 1 730's. Francis Wise, a Tory clergyman, published a n account of the horse in the form of a letter to Dr Mead, a ccompanied by an engraving, o f which P late 1 6 i s a l ater copy. H e c laimed t hat the H orse was carved i n the Anglo-Saxon p eriod b y K ing Alfred a nd thus r epresented a mark o f honour to h is distant r elatives, the house o f H anover. Two years later William Aspin, the Whigish vicar of Banbury published " The impertinence and Impostures of Modern Antiquaries D isplayed: or a r efutation o f the Rev Mr Wises l etter to Dr Mead concerning the White Horse and other antiquities o f B erkshire. I n a l etter to a f riend by Philalethes Rusticus". I n this tract Wise was a ttacked on numerous points and i t was even a lleged that h is proposal o f an Anglo-Saxon date f or the Horse r evealed Jacobite s ympathies and s upport o f mob violence. I t i s possible that f actors o ther than pure s cholarship motivated Aspin to l aunch s uch a wide r anging character a ssassination o n a f ellow c lergyman. At the time both men were attempting to become the f irst l ibrarian o f the Radcliffe Library i n Oxford. S ince then a cademics continued to publish conflicting opinions about the horse until the mid 1 960's by which t ime two contrasting views h ad crystallised. One opinion saw the Horse as an Iron Age survival, possibly r epresenting a tribal emblem o f the o ccupants o f U ffington Castle ( Crawford, O . G.S. 1 929). The o ther viewed the H orse a s a n AngloSaxon creation, perhaps carved to c elebrate the v ictory o f Alfred over the D anes a t the B attle o f Ashdown ( Woolner, D .1965). There was a lso a third v iew, which compromised by s uggesting that the Anglo-Saxons had re-cut a disused Iron Age Horse but this received no more popular support than Lord Wyfold's a ssertion that the figure had been carved by early man and was the r epresentation o f a Ceteosaurus ( Huntingford, G .W.B. 1 927). A major problem f acing the proponents o f an Anglo-Saxon origin was the complete absence o f evidence to s upport their v iew. I t was suggested that the Westbury White Horse could have been s imilarly carved t o celebrate the Danish defeat at Ethandun, b ut this mutually s upportive typology l acked credibility s ince the location o f both battlefields was unknown ( Huntingford, G . W.B. 1 920). Thereafter, t he s upporters o f Anglo-Saxon origins sought to prove their case by d iscrediting the evidence for I ron Age o rigins ( Woolner, D .1965). This was not an impossible task since the Horse's I ron Age a ntecedence was based on t he a ssertion that two objects could b e contemporary i f they l ook vaguely s imilar or were s ituated c lose to one another. The claim that the head and jaws of the Uffington Horse resembled those of horse-like f igures which appeared o n s ome early Dobunnic coins, was f irst made by Aspin i n 1 740 ( Woolner, D . 1 965). I t was later repeated by Sir John Evans, but d isparaged by F linders P etrie ( Crawford, O .G.S. 1 929).

1 20

The real, if unstated, basis of the argument remained the proximity o f the H orse to an undoubtably I ron Age H ill f ort. To counter this, the Anglo-Saxonists sought to s how that the s hape o f t he horse had a ltered over the years so that any claim based on a comparison with its present outline would have to be considered s purious ( Woolner, D . 1 965) .

P late

1 6.

A copy o f a n e ighteenth c entury print o f White Horse.

t he U ffington

There is certainly some evidence to support this view from historic a ccounts a nd early representations o f the Horse. Some depictions o f the Horse r ecord an outline very s imilar to that which exists today while a t l east one eighteenth century print depicts a much more conventional appearance ( Plate 1 6). I t i s difficult to know h ow much credence to g ive to s uch a n e ngraving for while details s uch a s the position o f Uffington castle and the a rchitecture o f U ffington and Compton Beauchamp Church are correct, it i s impossible to view on the ground, all o f these f eatures on the g round s imultaneously. I f the a rtist f elt t hat h e had t o compress the v iew to make i t more a greeable, h e m ight a lso have t aken s imilar l iberties with t he o utline o f t he H orse. The n ame, " White Horse Hill" and " The Vale of the White Horse appear in l egal documents dating f rom the l ate twelfth century ( Thom, J . 1 845). The f irst mention o f a f igure appears in an account of ancient wonders which include Stonehenge and the Rollright S tones, dating f rom c .1180, though i t i s described a s a White Horse with his foal ( Woolner, D 1 965, 3 1). In the s ixteenth century, L eland does not mention i t a nd, Camden, who though i t unlikely t o be o f a ny g reat a ntiquity d escribed i t a s " Some shape or o ther o f a white h ill" ( Marples, M . 1 981, 5 4).

1 21

horse

pictured on

a whitish

I n the l ate s eventeenth century, Vale described

Celia F iennes

o n

a v isit

" the shape off a horse in perfect proportions, wayes, a nd i s s een a g reat d istance v ery p laine" ( Morris, C .1947, 2 5).

in

to the broad

I t was a t a bout this t ime that the f irst r ecords survive o f t he f igure being s coured. This may have r esulted in alterations to the shape o f the figure if it was performed as described by William A splin i n the mid e ighteenth century. " These s courers....set h eartily about h im with their Mattocks and Spades, but dress h im over i n something of a H urry a s being i n haste to r eceive their Recompense o f Reward, which i s a good belly-full o f Ale" ( Marples, M . 1 981, 3 5). A combination o f s couring a nd weathering a ppears to have been t he cause o f changes i n the outline o f o ther h ill f igures d uring t he l ast two h undred years. Grinsell h as noted that the disappearance o f the C erne Abbas g iant's navel s ometime a fter 1 764 l ed to a 1 .6 metre increase in the l ength o f i ts penis ( Grinsell, L . 1 981, 2 9). Woolner has gone f urther , s uggesting that the U ffington Horse a s i t exists today i s l ittle more than a vestigial outline of the original much larger and better proportioned figure, although this is based on rather unconvincing photographic evidence ( Woolner, D . 1 965, 4 4). I f the horse i s to b e a ccepted a s a prehistoric s urvival one must a sk who was maintaining i t throughout the Roman, Saxon and Medieval periods and why ? A White Horse carved i nto the h illside above the v illage o f Ham i n Wiltshire d uring the 1 870's s eems to have d isappeared i n a matter o f decades when not maintained ( Crawford, O .G.S. 1 924, 7 3). Though a s trangely neglected topic in r ecent years, the horse continues to appear as an Iron Age artefact in modern archaeological publications ( Briggs, G . Cook, J & Rowley, T . 1 986, 1 78) The question o f i ts date may y et be f inally r esolved s ince i t h as recently become part o f a r esearch project carried out by the Oxford Archaeological Unit. In the course of r estoration work i n 1 952, a small trench had been excavated n ext to a beak-like projection on the horses h ead. This revealed that two different beaks were present some way above the chalk b edrock, s eparated by h illwash deposits. I n 1 990 the t rench n ext to the beak was r e-excavated a nd a f urther sondage was made n ext to the f igure's belly to determine i f this part o f t he outline h ad changed radically. The re-excavation s howed that t he f i9ure n ow p ossessed f our b eaks. One h ad b een o verlooked by t he o riginal excavator while another h ad been f ormed a fter 1 952. The h orse was found not to be carved into the natural bedrock, but to be outlined by cutting a trench which was then packed with chalk. The original edge o f the belly was apparently no more than two metres from i ts present position. Samples of the silt that are interstratified with the horse were taken for optical dating ( Palmer S , 1 990, 2 9-30). The r esults will b e available s hortly.

1 22

1 23

APPENDIX

2 :

NON FLINT SMALL FINDS

2

3

4

5

1 0 CENT IMETRES

F ig I I.1 M iscellaneous

smallfinds

A lthough t he majority o f i ndividually r ecorded s pecial f inds were p rehistoric f lint t ools, a t otal o f s even o ther s tone a nd c eramic smallfinds w ere a lso r ecovered. Smallfinds 1 -3 u ncertain d ate

were

whetstone

f ragments

a ll

o f

which

are

o f

Smallfind 4 i s a f ragment o f g lazed medieval f loor t ile. The d ecoration f eatures a t riangular motif w ith a g reeny y ellow g laze o verlying a white b ase. I t was l ocated n ear a p loughed o ut mound

1 24

t o the west o f the 2 82874, run G ).

deserted

s ettlement

at

Compton

B eauchamp

( SU

Smallfind 5 i s an unusual f lat bottomed ceramic cone, thought o n the basis of fabric type to be Roman. It was suggested as a possible p iece o f k iln f urniture ( M Mellor pers comm). Smallfind 6 i s part of the base of a large Romano-British pot t hat has been deliberately trimmed to from a pottery disc. Much smaller examples o f s imilarly r e-used broken pottery a re u sually classified as gaming tokens but the unusual size of this particular example s uggests that i t may have served s ome other f unction. Smallfind 7 ( Not I llustrated) was a late 1 4th or 1 5th century F rench type Jetton f ound i n a ssociation with a dense s catter o f Medieval and post-Medieval pottery on the edge of the shifted settlement of Longcot. It is quite worn and little of the marginal inscription that appears of both f aces i s l egible. At t he centre on one f ace i s a s hield on which two F leur de Lys a nd two h eraldic birds are visible. On the reverse f ace i s a cross separating four twining f lowers. Jettons such as this were p roduced i n l arge n umbers i n F rance and Germany a nd s eem to have been u sed i n England during the l ater Middle Ages a s a f orm o f l oose change.

1 25

APPENDIX I II POST ROMAN SHERD NUMBERS BY AREA AND DATE RANGE AREA B

( SEE F IG 6 .1)

DATE ( CENTURIES)

A

F

G

H

J

56 6 -8 SAXON

1 1 -

2 7 5

1 -

1 -

1

5 -

1 -

1 -

1 -

1 0-11 1 0M-11M

-

1 -

-

-

-

1 1

-

-

-

1 1-12 1 1-13 1 1-13E 1 1M-13E 1 1M-13 1 1L-13E 1 1L-13

-

1 2 1 1

2 -

-

1 1 8 -

1 5 3

-

1 -

1 -

1 2-13 1 2-13E 1 2-13M 1 2L-13 1 2L-13E 1 2L-13L 1 2-14 1 2L-14 1 2L-15 1 2L-16

3 4 -

1 9 1 6 1 4 8 2 44 2 -

2 2 3 0 -

3 -

6 1 2 1 4 1 08 3 -

1 9 7 1

1 -

1 1 2 -

2 -

1 3-14 1 3M-14 1 3M-14E 1 3M-14M 1 3L-14 1 3-15 1 3M-15 1 3-16

1 1

9 3 4 1 1 4 2 1 -

1 2 -

-

1 2 7 -

1 1 -

-

3 1 -

-

1 4L-15

-

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1 5-16

-

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

M EDIEVAL

1

1 95

2 6

-

4 9

4 9

5

2 6

3

E = Early

C

D

E

M = Middle

1 26

L = Late

AREA A 1 6-17 1 6-17E 1 6-17M 1 6L-17 1 6L-17L 1 6-18 1 6L-18 1 7M-17L 1 7-18 1 7E-18M 1 7E-18E 1 7E-18M 1 7E-19 1 7M-18 1 7M-18M 1 7M-18L 1 7L-18 1 7L-18M 1 7L-18L 1 7-19 1 7M-19 1 7L-19

B

( SEE F IG 6 .1). C

_ _ _ -

1 1 _ _ 1 _ -

1 _ _ _ -

1

7

3 1

M ID

1

-

«RIO

D _ _ _ _ 1 1

OM »

E

G

H

J

1 _ _ 1 -

3 _ 2 1 _

3 1 -

2 2 2

_

_

_

2 1

2 3 2

1 2

7

4

. 1 1• 1 1 .

" 1 " .

••••

6

2 2

F

1

2 1 -

• •••

' N M

1

1 _ 8 5 1 6

_ _ 4 8 1

2 _ _ 3 4 1

_ 1 1 10 2 2 5

3 _ 2 61 _ 2

3 _ _ 5 7 _ 1

9 _ _ 1 24 _ 3

2 _ _ 2 0 _ -

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 1 _ _ _ _ _

_ _ 6 _ _ _ 3 _ _ 5 _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ 1 _ _ _ _ _

_ _ 1 1 1 _ 4 1 1 2 5 1 7 1 1 1 4 _ 1

_ _ 5 _ 1 3 1 2 3 2 _ _ 1 -

3 7 _ _ _ _ 2 7 _ _ _ _

_ 1 1 7 _ _ 2 _ 2 _ 3 1 7 _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 4 _ _ _ _ _

POST MEDIEVAL

1 7

4

9

1 6

1

UNIDENTIFIED

3 4

-

2

1

1 8-18 1 8-18L 1 8-19 1 8-19E 1 8E-18M 1 8E-18L 1 8E-19 1 8M-19 1 8M-19E 1 8L-19 1 9-19 1 9-19L 1 9-20 1 9E-19 1 9E-19L 1 9M-19L

« Me

3 2

E = Early

M = M iddle

1 27

L = Late

B IBLIOGRAPHY ADDYMAN, P . LEIGH, D & HUGHES, M . F. 1 972. Anglo-Saxon Chalton Hampshire. Medieval Archaeology 1 6, 1 3-32.

Houses

at

ALLEN, J .R.L. & FULFORD, M . 1 986. The Wentlooge Level: a RomanoBritish Saltmarsh Reclamation in Southeast Wales. Britannia, Vol XVII, 9 1-117. ALLEN, W & PASSMORE, A . D. 1 935. Earthen Circles Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine. 4 7, 1 14-122. ANON. 1 884. Vol X , 1 33.

Note concerning the Woolstone Villa.

ARNOLD, C .J & WARDLE, P . 1 981. Early Medieval in England. Medieval Archaeology 2 5. 1 45-9.

near

Antiquary No

Settlement

ARNOLD. C . J. 1 984. Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon Archaeological Study. Croom Helm, London. ARKELL, 1 96-7.

W .J.

1 939.

The

site

of

Cherbury

Camp.

The

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