Monument record 0481700000 - 600M NE OF MANOR HOUSE

Dimensions - Length 750m, Width 20m.
Plan Form - Curvilinear.
Double ditched feature visible on APs (B1).
Further extent of double ditch(?) revealed on new AP, along with part of enclosure(?) crossing it (B2).
Plotted at 1:2500 (paper-strip method)(B3).
The historical research carried out as part of a watching brief during the construction of a stable block (NGR: SP 71845 42475) indicates that the soil mark is the remnant of a road marked on 17th and 18th century maps. Jeffreys' maps of 1770 and 1791, Bryant's map of 1825 and Davis map of 1793-4 show a road curving around the north of the field. By the 1st edition OS of 1885 the road appears to have been straightened. The road manifests as a linear soil mark which was impacted on its north side by the development. During the stripping of the ploughsoil, evidence of deep ploughing scores cutting into the underlying boulder clay were noted. In the SE corner of the site was a slight hollow containing a mixed deposit of topsoil, clay, limestone and pottery finds. No other archaeological features were discovered during the digging of the soakaway and the service trench. The finds are predominantly of 17th century date, with odd sherds of Roman, medieval and 18th century types. Other finds include a few fragments of animal bone, fragments of window and bottle glass, clay pipe stems, a few pieces of brick and sandy red earthenware roof tile, and several iron nails and spikes. The finds and their contexts indicate substantial activity in the vicinty, with perhaps the road being substantially out of use by the 18th century (B4).
A ride/road of medieval/post medieval date is visible on historic aerial photographs as extant cropmarks and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located approximately 350m north east of Home Farm, Lillingstone Lovell, and centred at SP 471789 242463. The 1814 Ordnance Surveyors’ Drawing for Stony Stratford shows the curving course of the cropmarks. This was a boundary of Whaddon Chase, around the location of Heybern Manor recorded in 1608 and on a 1787 plan of Whittlewood Forest. An Act of Parliament for compensation for the disafforestation of Whittlewood in 1852-3 which may be the date of creation of the new straight road to the north. Field boundaries continue some of the line of the road at the eastern end. The road/ride is up to 30m wide in places. (5-15)