Cholesbury Remote Sensing results

Jean B racing down the track

Herts Geophysical Survey have posted a super blog post on the results of the
work they did with BAS Active Archaeology Group and Chess Valley Archaeological and Historical Society at Cholesbury before Xmas.

Pics include Kris with his Santa hat!

Do have a look. Click on the link below and it should open in a new window.



https://hertsgeosurvey.wordpress.com/2015/12/30/cholesbury-buckinghamshire/

Happy New Year!
Barbara

Geophysical surveys at Cholesbury

PHOTO BY STUART KING

Twelve volunteers gathered in a field next to the Iron-Age Cholesbury Camp on Monday 14 December to conduct no fewer than three different geophysical surveys. This included a 'first' in Buckinghamshire: Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR).

There were two questions to answer: Did the outer ditch of the camp continue, now filled-in, beyond the edge of the scheduled area? And what might be causing the rectangular parch-marks noted in dry weather along the field's eastern edge?

Five of the 12 volunteers were AAG members. Others came from Chess Valley and Hertfordshire archaeological societies. The survey was led by Kris Lockyear from University College London.

First results came from metal-detecting by Stuart King: a George I farthing, a broken buckle (possibly Tudor), and a metal strap link, probably from a harness and potentially iron-age. Initial GPR results were disappointing: Kris reported 'land drains, two bonfire sites and some molehills'! Results from the Resistivity and Magnetometry surveys are awaited... 

Members now active on six projects

The BAS Active Archaeology Group is a hive of activity this Autumn and Winter, with six projects on the go across Buckinghamshire: 

Hobb's Hill, a small earthwork on the Chiltern escarpment just south of Monks Risborough, is the current target for an earthworks survey which is due to be completed in January. Hopefully the results will add to our knowledge of the surrounding Iron Age landscape. 

Our report on the geophysical surveys at Hogshaw Knights Hospitallers manor and deserted village site has now been completed and submitted to Historic England. The site will be the subject of an exhibition in the County Museum in 2016.

Three former nurses who are members of the group have been gathering regularly at the County Museum Bones Store recently. What they've found, and what this might tell us about the people of Buckinghamshire past, will be the subject of the group's evening meeting on Tuesday 19 January.  

Next to the Iron-Age Cholesbury Camp, another group of members are helping to survey a field where parchmarks have been noted during dry weather. For the first time our geophysical survey, led by Kris Lockyear of University College London, will include Ground-Penetrating Radar.

Northchurch World War I practice trenches are the site of a survey led by the National Trust, with help from six of our group members. The commons there were the site of a large training camp in WW1 and the landscape still bears the marks - if you know where to look. 

The sixth project will be at Cheddington Airfield in the New Year, when four members will be surveying what was an American Air Force bomber base during the Second World War. This is part of a project styled 'The 8th in the East' which is surveying former American airfields across eastern England.

• IF YOU'RE INTERESTED in joining any of our projects, eMail us at bucksasaag@gmail.com to find out what's happening and when.

Roman iron smelting in the Chilterns?

Hobb's Hill survey day 1 - a new project

Sixteen members of the Active Archaeology Group converged on Hobb's Hill, near Princes Risborough, on Sunday 1 November for the first day of our survey there. 

The site is a ditch and bank running along the crest of a high spur of the Chilterns escarpment. Its date of construction is unknown, but other earthworks nearby are known to be pre-Roman. The aim of this new AAG project will be to establish where Hobb's Hill fits in.


In brilliant sunshine one team measured the earthworks, a second measured levels to obtain profiles of their shape, while a third explored the surrounding woodland to establish the context of the site. Others off-site will research local finds and reports from other local archaeological sites.

This being autumn, the local 'natural history' also drew our attention, with a notable profusion of different fungi in evidence - though at lunch we stuck to our sandwiches!

Another survey is planned in late November.

PHOTOS: Stuart King.
   

BAS AAG in the press

Today's Buckingham and Winslow Advertiser is running the following story on its village pages.
(Apologies for the poor scan!)
Barbara

Filled to the brim with girlish glee - BAS ladies at Maids Moreton Mound excavation (photos)

Louise

Rhian

Jenny

Glynis

Barbara

A visit to Maids Moreton Mound

We visited the dig at “Maids Moreton Mound” on a warm and sunny morning, Monday 17 August, the first day of the second and final week of the dig.  The first thing we learned was - it isn’t a mound, it’s a platform!  Tim Upton-Smith kindly gave us an overview of the findings so far, explaining that they had uncovered a (6 metre?) square of yard stone and had chosen to dig 4 sondages at strategic points, guided by the geo-physical scan previously conducted. 

8 or 9 volunteers were hard at work in those sondages with various sizes of trowel, meticulously clearing the soil away.  In one corner, Barbara (bottom right in picture) was excavating a previously identified deep pit - she was already over a metre down and there was clear evidence that the pit was lined with stone but the purpose of the pit remained unclear.  In another corner (top centre of picture), Lynn, Rhian and Glynis had uncovered a large flat stone and some pink soil, which was an indication of (???)

The round bowl (ignore the green mat)

In one of the other sondages we were fascinated to see them slowly and tentatively unearthing a round bowl which was buried just below the yard stone level and contained clear evidence that it had been used to burn something, as yet unidentified. 

A few meters away someone else was meticulously sieving the soil which had already been removed. 

This dig is the second of two (so far) at this site.  Sadly, we had just missed an exhibition at Buckingham Old Gaol Museum, where all the findings in the two trenches dug on the earlier dig last year had been displayed.  We were told that all those findings had been mediaeval and that the yard stone had been laid down immediately on top, so was also of around that era. 

We felt privileged to have witnessed the work at close hand and are very grateful for the warm welcome we received.

Linda Knights and Bronwen Lee

AAG Autumn and Winter Meetings Programme

The Active Archaeology Group's programme of meetings for Autumn 2015 and Winter 2016 is now finalised. All will be at the County Museum in Aylesbury, starting at 7.30pm. So put these dates in your diaries:

Tuesday 15 September:
EXCAVATING THE ICKNIELD WAY AT ASTON CLINTON
Matthew Morris of Leicester University

Tuesday 20 October:
SUMMER FINDS AT MAIDS MORETON, NEAR BUCKINGHAM
Dr Susan Sorek

Tuesday 17 November:
ASHRIDGE: SEARCHING FOR THE MONASTIC CHURCH
Ken Wallis of Berkhamsted Archaeology Society

Tuesday 15 December:
INVESTIGATIONS AT WARREN WOOD, LITTLE MARLOW
Andy Ford of Archaeology in Marlow

Tuesday 19 January 2016:
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE'S OLD BONES: INVESTIGATIONS IN THE MUSEUM STORE 
Jean Savigar

Tuesday 16 February:
SMALL FINDS, BIG STORIES: THE 'PORTABLE ANTIQUITIES SCHEME'
Rose Tyrrell, Buckinghamshire Finds Liaison Officer

Tuesday 15 March:
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE POTS, POTTERS AND POTTERIES 1200-1900
Mike Farley and Barbara Hurman

• All meetings are in the Learning Zone at the Bucks County Museum in Church Street, Aylesbury, starting at 7.30pm. Entrance is from the footpath at the side of the building facing the churchyard. 

Archaeology day and weekend courses at Oxford

There's a good crop of archaeology courses this autumn and winter in the new Oxford University Continuing Education programme, which is just out. Here are a few examples:

• How about Understanding Prehistoric Stone Tools, a two-day weekend course on 31 October and 1 November with a chance to handle Stone-Age objects in the Ashmolean Museum?
• Or The Hillforts of Britain and Ireland: When, where and why? This should appeal to those working on our own AAG Hillforts Project. Again it's a weekend but with a Friday evening start, on 27-29 November. 
• Then there's a day school on The Romano-British Countryside, with some local settlements as examples. That's on Saturday 16 January 2016.
• And the one I'm planning to go for: East Oxford: A Thames Valley landscape, which promises to show how a community project of test pits, geophysics, place names and old maps all helped identify a historic landscape.

That's just four out of 14 in the Archaeology and six in the Local History list, among many others. Most courses are at Rewley House in Oxford itself, and fees vary. You can view all their courses on-line at OUCE courses list - and even enrol and pay for them too.

Peter Marsden

Hogshaw earthworks survey completed

The final sections of the Hogshaw earthworks survey were measured and recorded on Tuesday 28 July by five members of the AAG. The high wind, which had caused a previous survey to be called off, faded as the day progressed and, with good weather, the last measurements were done before 6pm.

The measurements covered the area around the two mounds which we have tentatively identified as the gateway of the former Knights Hospitallers’ precinct. With the moat and other former water channels, and the ‘formal garden’, the large field to north and east of the Ox House and the small paddock north of the drive have now been fully surveyed.

Seven members of the group completed the work: Bronwen Lee, David Bishop, Janet Dineen, Kate Davies, Pauline Hey, Peter Marsden and Rhian Morgan. David will now draw up the results.

The next step at Hogshaw will be to produce a short report of the geophysical survey results so far for English Heritage, in order to request an extension of our geophysical survey licence so we can complete this. It is a scheduled site.    

Peter M

'Open the Box'

(From Day of Archaeology website)

Some of you may, like me  be old enough to remember a game show, hosted by Michael Miles where contestants had to decide to  "take the money or open the box". The box might hold a booby prize, a £1 premium bond or some fabulous prize. Well , there have been echoes of this at Bucks county museum stores over the past few months. 

Three members of the Active archaeology group-Jean, Jeanie and Glynis have been helping two osteoarchaeologists -Diane and Suzy to describe, identify material suitable for scientific tests, catalogue and repack the museum's skeletons. 

When we choose a box to open we have little idea of what might be inside- a bronze age warrior, a saxon "princess", sometimes a jumble  of bones from several different skeletons, sometimes with animal bones or pottery or pieces of stone mixed in. Trawling the archives to discover what information is available about the remains is also part of the project. 

To find out more about this project keep an eye on the programme for the AAG meetings. We are now about halfway through the 200 boxes of human remains, so we will continue to "open the box" and no, "take the money" is not an option!

Glynis 

Maids Moreton - the friendly village

On 26th April a small group of AAG members visited the 'mound' in Maids Moreton where 2 trial trenches were excavated last year.
The mound is a 2m high square based platform surrounded by a ditch. But what was it?



Susan, Lyn and Steven (who owns the mound) did a splendid job in bringing us up to speed with the results. I won't go into details because there is an exhibition on the dig in The Old Gaol Museum in Buckingham at the moment. Well worth a visit!




I will tantalise you that they discovered over 480 pieces of pot. 80% of which dated from 11th/12th century.


And numerous small finds including medieval worked bone.

But the question still remains - what was the purpose of the mound? 

More...

Mud, mud, glorious mud at Stowe Landscape Gardens

On 6th May 5 intrepid ladies in various shades of wellingtons ventured into the Elysian Fields in Stowe Landscape Gardens. Armed with trowels and under the expert and tender guidance of Gary Marshall, National Trust archaeologist we helped to investigate a potential pool where the linear lake feeds the Octagon Lake. The Trust had been trying to clear away some of the steep side banks with a digger and had uncovered masonry blocks. As the site was steep, wet and small, Gary needed only a small group to hand dig and clear the area to find out if the masonry was the edge of small pool.

From the top lake the water came down over some cement blocks into a culvert, then emerged as a small but steady trickle through the arch shown in the picture. The whole of the wall surrounding the arch was covered in ivy and had an interesting pipe going across the wall - feeding what? or taking water where?

The interventions and alterations from its original watercourse over the years included a path between the two lakes - over the arch. So it looked like the area was seriously altered from the original garden plan.

More.....