Monument record 0632101003 - Taplow Hillfort: Late Bronze Age Fence Lines

In advance of the construction of a new Chanting Hall, an archaeological evluation was carried out in 1998 by Wessex Archaeology. North of the Victorian Building, the evaluation found Mesolithic flint work, a late Bronze Age feature, and three large ditches. One of the fence lines was found in the very small trench12 and thought to have been a ditch. It contained Late Bronze Age pottery in its uppermost fill. A few sherds of Late Bronze Age pottery were also found residually in later efatures. Oxford Archaeology were subsequently commissioned to undertake a wider investigation in 1999. Two N-S parallel double lines of postholes were found running across the excavation area, interpreted as fence lines within the late Bronze Age settlement (B1,3).
Three rows of posts were found within the hillfort, all parallel to the palisade. These may have formed other palisades or less substantial fences running around the periphery of the hillfort. One of the post-hole rows possibly post-dated the extension to palisade 1108; two others may have predated the round-house 1134. some not very regular rows, one set in a palisade trench which turned west at its northern end. One possibility is that at some point in the site history these structures were the main, or only, defence for this site. An alternative possibility is that they defined fences which divided the interior, for example, for managing the movement of livestock, but since so little of the interior lay within the excavations, this remains speculative (B2).