Monument record 0210100000 - EAST OF BOVENEY VILLAGE Area 16: rectangular ditched enclosure

SUBRECTANGULAR ENCLOSURE WITH ?HUT CIRCLE & PITS INSIDE, SITUATED ON EDGE OF GRAVEL ISLAND ON THE DORNEY FLOODPLAIN C.400M FROM THE THAMES. PROBABLY IRON AGE: LATE IRON AGE POTTERY HAS BEEN FOUND THERE AS WELL AS SAXON, & MESOLITHIC/NEOLITHIC/BRONZE AGE FLINT. FIELDWALKING BY P CARSTAIRS ON SITE OF ENCLOSURE & N & S OF IT PRODUCED MESOLITHIC FLINTWORK, NEOLITHIC & BRONZE AGE FLINTWORK, A SHERD OF LATE IRON AGE POTTERY & 1 OF ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERY. A FEW SHERDS OF SAXON POTTERY HAVE BEEN RECOVERED FROM THE PLOUGHSOIL OVER THE ENCLOSURE (1-9).
In the course of construction of the Eton Rowing lake, this site will be lost under the return lake of the rowing course. As a consequence, Oxford Archaeology undertook an area excavation calling the area 'Site 16'. More than 0.82 hectares of topsoil was removed to expose the majority of the cropmark rectangular enclosure. The cropmark had indicated that the enclosure had two parts/phases with a smaller annexe to the N. Early Neolithic struck flint and fragments of Plain Bowl and Peterborough Ware were recovered from the soils of the interior. To the S, a group of burnt patches and possible postholes of Neolithic or early Bronze Age were found. The cropmark ring ditch proved to be early Bronze Age with finds of both Beaker and early Bronze Age pottery. There were no internal burials, but a crouched inhumation was found cut into the ditch and another lay in a shallow pit just outside to the E. A four-post structure lay slightly off-centre within the ring ditch. To the west, concentrations of burnt flint and charcoal were found over a distance of nearly 100m along the edge of the gravel terrace suggesting that the watercourse was moving westwards and that successive ditches were cut through the silted Bronze Age and Iron Age phases of the watercourse. The main enclosure proved to have several phases - the ditch was about 1.5m deep and 2.5m - 3m wide in both the Iron Age and Early Roman period. It had a single narrow entrance on the N side. A rectangular 9-post building was found on the east side and an arc of gully surrounding a group of postholes on the S. Iron Age pits were only found in the SE part of the interior, and a group of these pits formed a continuation of the line of the gully arc. A further cluster of postholes lay in the centre of the enclosure but did not form any obvious shape. Arcs of postholes outside the structure suggest further structures. Finds include a substantial number of decorated vessels and a Kentish potin coin. The enclosure was extended northward in the early Roman period and its use continued until the 3rd century. The main enclosure ditch was accompanied and eventually replaced by smaller parallel ditches and gullies on the W Side - four seperate ditch cuts and at least three gullies were noted. During the Roman period a trackway defined by two parallel gullies ran away to the S. No Roman buildings were found, althrough shallow pits contained occupation debris and 5 stone-lined wells (three within the southern enclosure - two with timber linings) and two within the northern extension. Two baby burials were found in the northern enclosure. A dog burial was also noted in the main ditch to the N (10).