Monument record 0960300000 - Taplow-Dorney pipeline: Site A Roman field system

Archaeological geophysical survey, evaluation trial trenching, excavation and a watching brief were undertaken on the Taplow-Dorney water pipeline. Site A was excavated east of Taplow village, south of Hitcham Lane.
A linear anomaly, possibly a ditch, was picked up on the magnetometer survey (B1).
In the evaluation, three ditches were found cutting E-W but were not dated. They may have been the Roman ditches found in excavation (B3).
Ditches, comprising parts of a Roman co-axial field system, cut some of the earlier features. A ditch ran N-S and was recut on the same alignment. Three other ditches were orientated E-W. Two of the ditches may have formed a trackway. They were dated to the Roman period from pottery, although there was also lots of residual Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age pottery in the fills of the ditches as well (B4).
Early in the Roman period, ditches were set out that probably represent the boundaries to fields. On Site A these ditches disregard the layout of earlier features and suggest that the landscape was being reorganised in a totally different way from that which had been carried out before. The pottery dated from the first to the fourth centuries AD and probably represents the casual dispersal of refuse by manuring rather than indicating settlelment within the immediate area (B5).