Monument record MBC48606 - subcircular ring ditch cropmark of medieval/post medieval pond, Putlowes

A subcircular ring ditch cropmark of a medieval/post-medieval pond is visible on aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located in a field about 380 metres SW of Putlowes and centred at SP 77866 14869, a subcircular ditch about 1.5 metres wide encloses an area about 132 square metres and is up to 28 metres in diameter at its widest. A “single ring ditch, possibly a Bronze Age round barrow” recorded as a Historic England Research Record (Monument No.1575728) from rapid reconnaissance recording of aerial photographs taken in 2011 had accidentally been mislocated some 1,450 metres to the E. An orthorectification of that same source aerial photograph by this project actually locates the ring ditch precisely on the site and extent of a filled-in medieval and/or post medieval pond, recorded on the 1st Edition OS map dated to the 1880s. It was still visible as a water-filled earthwork pond on aerial photographs taken in 1947 and remained so in 1971, but had been completely fill-in and levelled by 1986. By 2011 its former outer margins were visible as a subcircular cropmark on aerial photographs, leading to the erroneous interpretation (1-5).