Monument record 0054500000 - WESTERN GREEN FARM

VILLAGE DESERTION/MIGRATION? (B6).
SURVEY AT 1:2500 & SKETCH ON CAS FILE SHOW AREA OF VILLAGE EARTHWORKS INCLUDING ENCLOSURES, TRACKS, PONDS, RIDGE & FURROW PLOUGHING ETC. NOW MUCH DAMAGED BY PLOUGHING, BULLDOZING, QUARRYING (B5-6).
NGR TO ?CHAPEL SITE WITHIN VILLAGE EARTHWORKS (B5).
The base of a shallow 'hollow', 0.04 - 0.1m deep and 1.1m wide recorded by Thames Valley Archaeological Services during a watching brief in July 2010 and interpreted as a modern ditch, is shown as a surviving earthwork on earlier aerial photos and is probably the southern end of a distinct hollow-way leading from the settlement into the fields (B7).

An area of deserted settlement of medieval date is visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as extant earthworks and levelled earthworks and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located to the west of Western Green Farm, Thornborough, and centred at SP 73497 33849.
These earthworks are on the western end of a ridge of higher ground which continues to the south of the current village of Thornborough. They are surrounded by areas of ridge and furrow field systems, with plough headlands and route ways. These earthworks are divided in to two areas by existing field boundaries; a plan from 1637 shows the northern area as a large single field called The House Ground and is approximately 70 acres in size. It has been subdivided, probably as part of the inclosure Act of 1797, and in the 20th century woodland has been planted over some of the earthworks. The earthworks in this area show on lidar to have been affected by levelling and are not as well preserved as those to the south; they are clear on aerial photographs from 1951 but have changed by 1999 and can still be seen on lidar visualisations. At the centre of the northern earthworks is an irregular shaped enclosure with subrectangular enclosures attached on the north and east sides, it has a bank and ditch for boundaries and appears to have internal subdivisions and possible building platforms. A pond to the north of this has been enlarged from the earthworks visible in 1951. This enclosure group has two roads converging on it from the south and a single road leaving to the north. These features are all surrounded by ridge and furrow earthworks. None of the boundaries and features in the northern part of the earthworks are mapped on the 1637 plan.
Earthworks on the southern side of the field boundary, around the current Western Green Farm buildings, are still under grassland and are still very clear on aerial photographs and lidar visualisations. The 1637 map allows some of these features to be identified, including the triangular shaped Westerne Greene, the road leading on to it from the south and leaving it to the north, and the smaller enclosures of fields and house and garden plots. Further earthworks suggest the existence of more buildings and internal divisions within the plots, formed by linear earthworks of banks and ditches. Western Green Farm sales particulars do not refer to the earthworks on the land. (16-25)