Monument record 0417202000 - W OF FOX COVERT

'SLURRY PITS' W OF FOX COVERT NEAR BROOK, AREA OF RAISED SCRUBLAND, THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN CREATED BY WASHING COPROLITES (B4).

Extractive pits, a pond and possible tramway/trackway of post medieval date are visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as extant earthworks and soilmarks and were mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located north of Fox Covert, Dinton-with-Ford and Upton, and centred at SP 78722 08533. A subrectangular platform, similar to that recorded at Little Marsh Farm for washing coprolites, can be seen as an earthwork, measuring 73x150m at its largest; it has been covered by scrub and woodland since the 1940s but the earthwork is clear on lidar visualisations. Associated with this is a long linear earthworks bank extending between the road leading north west towards Ford. This is a hedged field boundary in the 1940s but has been removed by 2003 and is only visible as a cropmark in an arable field. This feature has a pond at the point where it turns towards the north east and the area of uneven ground where the extraction pits show as soilmarks on aerial photographs. These pits extend only up to the existing field boundaries so postdate the creation of the modern field system, likely at the inclosure of the parish of Dinton in 1804. The platform remains wooded but modern land use across the rest of the area mapped is arable and remaining earthworks are low and smoothed by ploughing. (5-8)