Unrepeatable chance to visit medieval village site - next Thursday 14 July

Next Thursday (14 July) the excavations of part of the medieval village of Stone will be open for visitors. This is an unrepeatable opportunity because the site is for housing development, so will be in all likelihood destroyed once the builders move in.

The village of Stone, which is west of Aylesbury on the A418 road towards Oxford, dates from before the Norman Conquest of 1066. The archaeologists have found tenement plots near the church, including a possible smithy and a kiln or oven.

The site will be open for visitors on Thursday 14 July between 10am and 3pm. If you can get along there it will be worth the visit. (Those of us who visited a similar site at Aston Clinton two years ago will be aware that this is now built over and the newly-built houses there are for sale!)

Here is the flyer from Archaeological Solutions with details of how to find the site:

Geophysical survey at Hogshaw now complete

The geophyscial surveyors returned to the former Knights Hospitallers' site at Hogshaw last Sunday, 5 June. 

With magnetometry equipment and ground-penetrating radar we surveyed the area where two metre-side masonry walls had been identified in the 2003 watching brief and a section of the field bordering on what is probably a formal garden noted in our 2015 survey.

The results of Sunday's work have not yet been analysed but we're hoping they will offer clues to the position of the one-time parish church of St John the Baptist, which fell into dereliction 300 years ago.

The survey was led by Kris Lockyear of University College London. He will be coming to speak to a BAS Active Archaeology Group meeting in the Autumn about the new work being done at St Albans on Roman Verulamium. Watch this space for details of the meeting.

Measuring distances suddenly becomes easier...

The AAG survey team tested our new distance-measuring device at Buckland on Sunday - and found it a great time-saver.

This  is a 'Disto', a combination of a movie camera and a low-powered laser beam. Use the camera to focus the laser on a target, and it tells you the distance - to the nearest single centimetre! 

Our photo shows the Disto on the right and target on the left.

On Sunday the team needed to find the exact position of an earthwork in woodland, by measuring the distance to two separate points on the boundary fences and using triangulation. One distance was about 350 metres, the other 200 metres. With the Disto this took about an hour to measure accurately. With old-fashioned tape measures it would have taken more than twice that time.

So now we have no need for tape measures. What a pity we've all spent the past year learning how to use them...

Hogshaw exhibition opens at Bucks County Museum in Aylesbury

The group's Exhibition on the deserted village and Knights Hospitallers' former manor at Hogshaw opened on Saturday 7 May at the Bucks County Museum in Church Street, Aylesbury.

On display are objects found on the site, an account of the 700-year history of the former village and manor as revealed by our research, and results of our earthworks and geophysical surveys made during 2015.

The exhibition will run until the end of July.

RIGHT: Our picture shows part of the Hogshaw display. The pots are examples found elsewhere in the county but which would have been in use in Hogshaw.

Trowels in the ground at Hobbs Hill

On 17 April, under the supervising and experienced eye of Yvonne Edwards of Chess Valley Archaeology and History Society, a team of willing AAG diggers put three trenches across the earthwork at Hobbs Hill and investigated the possible saw pit to the south of the earthwork.  

All four excavations fought their way through the tree-root and leaf-mould layer, progressively recording the layers and finds. One trench has uncovered bottles and metal fragments, probably left by a 19th-century forestry worker, and another trench has reached the underlying chalk.

 

Much more remains to be discovered. Watch this space...

Surveying at Boarstall duck decoy

Five members braved a foggy March morning to help National Trust archaeologist Gary Marshall survey earthworks. The duck decoy is a large pond with several inlets (known as 'pipes') leading from it: originally covered with netting on a frame, these get smaller as they go away from the pond. Ducks were enticed along these 'pipes' until easily caught at the narrow end. Originally ducks were trapped for the table, more recently for ringing. Decoys were once common, but few now remain and Boarstall is one of the best preserved.

The pattern of pipes and ponds has changed over the years, and there is evidence of former ridge-and-furrow. Our task was to map the various earthworks. Recent rain had left the site soggy, so there were cries of 'Hurry up - I'm sinking!' The wooded site also has vicious brambles, so once in position, getting out was often harder. But the sun came out.

A further session will complete the survey on 1 April (an appropriate date) but this may need only half a day.    Pauline Hey

Hobbs Hill earthworks survey drawing completed

The group's survey team has completed work on the earthworks at Hobbs Hill  -  here (left) is the first survey drawing. Section drawings are to follow.

Its origins are unknown... Within two kilometres of Hobbs Hill are remains of a Neolithic barrow, Iron Age enclosure, Roman villa and Norman motte-and-bailey castle. So the Hobbs Hill earthwork could be almost anything. Next task: find out!