Find Spot record 0939600000 - W of Garden of Tranquility, Taplow Court

Trial trenching carried out in 1997-8 by Taplow Court Archaeological Survey Team recovered a large number of pottery sherds, worked flints and other post-medieval material (Victorian roof ridge tiles, scrap window lead, mortared brickwork and large blocks of worked Portland stone, clay pipe, a horse harness buckle, nails, slag and burnt material including clay fragments) from Trench 2. All the recorded contexts were mixed, indicating a considerable degree of disturbance, with no stratigraphy. The trench had been located across a N-S aligned bank (c70m long, 2-3m high and 4-5m wide) which proved to be a Victorian spoil heap probably dating from the renovation of the house or possibly the construction of an associated estate or garden building (B1-3).
A total of 2613 sherds were recovered from the TCAST trenches, 2175 of which were scanned for comparison with the assemblage from the Taplow Court excavations by Oxford Archaeology. A total of 40 Early Bronze Age sherds, including a sherd decorated with a single bone-impressed line. The Late Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age sherds included a higher quantity of recognisable forms. Although to a large extent there was a high degree of similarity in fabric and form between this and the assemblage from the OA excavations, there were some significant differences. Although little is known of the disturbed contexts from which this assemblage was recovered, a wider variety of material was recovered from these trenches than from within the hillfort. The Roman pottery was poorly preserved. Sherds were small and chronologically mixed. It seems to have been a redeposited assemblage, much disturbed through later activity. However, the material nevertheless points to the presence of a Late Iron Age and Roman settlement in the vicnity of the site (B4).