Monument record 0551303001 - LAKE END ROAD WEST: Romano-British field system

Fieldwalking in advance of the proposed Maidenhead Flood Relief Scheme at the Lake End West site, produced concentrations of Roman pottery mostly to the east of the site (B4).
Excavation by the Oxford Archaeological unit in 1997 found a series of seven regularly spaced, north-south aligned boundary ditches which may represent a Roman field system. A significant reorganisation of the boundary system at the eastern end of the site seems to have occurred during the Roman period, probably during the 2nd century AD. Unlike the later prehistoric and early Romano-British enclosures, which derive their alignment
from the River Thames, the later Roman enclosures are perpendicular to Lake End Road. Some of these ditches, and a group of pits, are provisionally dated to the 3rd or 4th century AD, indicating that occupation continued into the later Roman period in the vicinity. Another pit in the same area produced a very large assemblage of 2nd to 3rd century pottery (1539 sherds). The very small quantity of later Roman pottery suggests that the site was on the periphery of settlement by the 3rd century AD (B9).