Monument record 0951008000 - Rowborough Copse

Extensive complex of WWI practice trenches surviving as well-preserved earthworks in Rowborough Copse at Halton Camp. Partly excavated in 2009 by RAF recruits supervised by the MoD's archaeologist, and subsequently reconstructed as an educational resource, officially opened on 10th June 2010 (B1).
Further excavations in July 2011 uncovers evidence for later modifications to the basic trench design and finds including pottery dated 1915 (B2).

Two main areas of trenches can be identified from Environment Agency LiDAR; an area of trenches that were reconstructed in 2009, centred on approximately SP 8745 0919, and an area to the south-west of this surviving as substantial earthworks and centred on approximately SP 8744 0910.
The reconstructed trenches consist of a pair of parallel crenellated trenches connected by a communications trench with curved traverses, and with mock shell craters between the two trenches. This process of reconstruction appears to have removed archaeological deposits to a significant depth, with finds such as a beer bottle and an interwar fork noted, as well as redefining the profile of the monument.
The better preserved group to the south survives as unaltered strong earthworks, demonstrated by both 1m LiDAR from the Environment Agency, as well as photographs taken from the ground indicating survival at a depth of over 1m. It forms an irregular quadrilateral in plan, approximately 120m long and aligned on a north-north-west/south-south-east axis. It flares from a width of approximately 40m at its northern end to a width of approximately 60m at its southern end. Whilst this group is evidently mimicking an arrangement with front line, support line, and at least three zig-zagged communications trenches, the orientation of the trench system is unclear.
It has been suggested in the gazetteer of surviving First World War fieldworks in England that the trenches may have extended to the south into an area of arable cultivation, however this not clear from any satellite or LiDAR imagery.
Halton was established as an army camp for 2,500 officers and men of the 1st Brigade of Guards in September 1913 on the estate of Alfred de Rothschild. The trenches were initially created by the 21st Yorkshire Division, who were succeeded by East Anglian regiments who added to the trench system. The camp at Halton was in use by the Royal Flying Corps from the summer of 1917, when the trenches were presumably abandoned. The trenches may have been reused in the Second World War, based on material removed from the restored trenches such as a fork dated to 1938 (3).
This record includes National Record of the Historic Environment Information provided by Historic England on 4 June 2025 licensed under the Open Government Licence (4).