Monument record 0530500000 - MILL FARM, BEACHAMPTON

Plan Form - CIRCULAR
3 FAINT CIRCLES (1 A DOUBLE RING?) ON AP. RING DITCHES? POSSIBLE, AS ARE ON OUSE RIVER GRAVELS, & AS IS A DEFINITE RING DITCH (CASS 01981) ON OTHER SIDE OF RIVER. HOWEVER, THERE ARE GEOLOGICAL FEATURES/OLD QUARRIES ADJACENT TO 3 CIRCLES. NGR TO SITE, IN FIELD N OF MILL FARM, 150M W OF RIVER OUSE (B1).

A ring ditch, linear features and maculae of late prehistoric date are visible on historic aerial photographs as cropmarks and were mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located approximately 160m north east of Mill Farm, Beachampton, and centred at SP 477623 238199. The ring ditch is approximately 22m in diameter with linear features either side and maculae, between 3-4m in diameter to the west of the ring ditch. There are also linear features which could form a trackway. The BGS geological maps (1:50,000) show a subcircular area of made ground, possibly from a former extractive site or possible excavation of the ring ditch site. The Records of Buckinghamshire from 1983 records this site as being identified in 1975 from aerial photographs. A cropmark on the 1946 aerial photograph shows a difference in the soil colour at this location but no further detail. Cropmarks show this as irregular dark areas with the clearer features outside this area. The geological maps are at a scale of 1:50,000 and the location is not the same as the features mapped from the aerial photographs and remote sensing, but it appears to be the same area of excavation. The underlying geology is Superficial Deposits of river terrace gravels overlying Oolitic limestone. (2-8)