Monument record 0032601000 - MORETON FARM deserted settlement

INCLUDED IN LIST OF BUCKS DMV'S (B6).
EXCELLENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL INFORMATION BUT LITTLE HISTORICAL. SURROUNDED BY EXTENSIVE RIDGE & FURROW (B7).
VERY GOOD STATE OF PRESERVATION: OVER 1M HIGH IN PLACES. LARGE DMV WITH STREETS, PLATFORMS & RIDGE & FURROW. SCHEDULED (B8).
Watching brief carried out by John Moore Heritage Services in March 2011 during groundworks for construction of a new manege identified an undated ditch aligned NE-SW and at least 12m long and 3m wide with post-medieval to modern pottery and brick in the upper fill. Most of the groundworks were restricted to the subsoil layer and natural was only reached in the NE corner of the site. See report for details (B12).

A deserted settlement of medieval/post medieval date is visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as extant earthworks and was mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located at Moreton Farm, Dinton with Ford and Upton, and centred at SP 79019 09748. A deserted settlement is visible as an area of linear earthworks on the south side of a brook where the land rises gently towards the south. Ridge and furrow field systems with furlong boundaries can be seen around the settlement and there is a moated site is at the southern end of the area. The land falls approximately 5m from the site of the moat to the brook, approximately 500m to the north. The earthworks appear to be of roads and trackways through the settlement, with plot boundaries forming small subrectangular plots along their length. Platforms of probable former buildings, including a possible mill mound, can be seen in between the linear earthworks. Post medieval coprolite workings are also recorded at the southern end of the site which may have obscured further remains of the settlement. The underlying solid geology of Gault Formation Mudstone has given rise to soils with impeded drainage and some of the features visible on lidar visualisation may have been enhanced or distorted by this; for example, taller, but lower, vegetation growing higher in ditches, where water is more available, and appearing as ridges. The moat measures approximately 100m from north to south but the shape is not clear in that it may have been a complete sub oval shape or it may only have been a subrectangular moat at the southern end of the oval enclosure. In the 1940s the house is visible standing inside the moat and can be seen on Ordnance Survey Epoch 1 but is no longer standing by 2003. (16-25)