Monument record MBC47783 - MEDIEVAL VILLAGE SHRINKAGE HARDWICK

Medieval / post medieval platform, ditches and banks from village shrinkage is visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as earthworks and was mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located in a field immediately E of Lower Road in Hardwick village and centred at SP 80848 19191, the earthworks extend over an area about 174 metres W-E and 118 metres N-S. The features comprise a rectilinear earthwork platform about 56 metres W-E and 26 metres N-S abutting the trackway leading ENE out of the village. A narrow boundary ditch flanks the S and E facing sides. About 15 metres E from the NE corner of this platform is a circular pit about 8 metres in diameter. To the S is a ditch that possibly forms a rectilinear enclosure, next to an earthwork bank up to 8.5 metres wide and 140 metres long aligned WSW-ENE. The ground between all the features appears to be fairly amorphous hollows and mounds, except for a C-shaped bank 2.5 metres wide that encloses an area about 7 metres in diameter, whose function is uncertain. In the SW corner of the site is a further linear earthwork bank about 58 x 12 metres on the same WSW-ENE alignment. On aerial photographs taken in 2023 and recent remote sensing data, the earthworks remain visible (1-4).