Monument record 0210200000 - SOUTH OF BOVENEY VILLAGE Area 6: settlement

CROP MARKS SHOW 2 DEFINITE RING DITCHES (01:100 & 01:200) CROSSED BY LINEAR FEATURE (03:000), POSSIBLY GEOLOGICAL. NORTH OF THIS ARE 3 POSSIBLE RING DITCHES, 1 VERY DOUBTFUL. GEOLOGICAL DISTURBANCE MEANS THAT N AREA RATHER OBSCURED. FIELDWALKING IN THIS FIELD & THE ONE TO THE EAST BY P J CARSTAIRS & CMAG PRODUCED LATE IRON AGE POTTERY, medieval pottery, neolithic and bronze age pottery and FRACTURED FLINT (SEE PLOT FILED). CONCENTRATION IN AREA OF CROPMARKS, and TO SOUTH OF CROPMARKS (B5-6).
During the construction of the Eton College Rowing Lake and the Maidenhead, Eton and Windsor Flood Alleviation scheme, this site was evaluated and excavated by Oxford Archaeology (known as Area 6). A total of 1.25 hectares was stripped covering the area of the 5 suspected ring-ditches and incorporating a continuation of the former Thames channel and a glacial hollow. In March 1995, the area was ploughed so that students from Reading University could fieldwalk the area surrounding the barrows, and a concentration of struck flint was found to the N. When the topsoil was stripped in 1996, a total of 160 test pits, each 1m square, were dug and did not find any concentrations of mesolithic pottery/flint. Gullies and a small sub rectangular enclosure was noted at the southern edge of the glacial hollow/channel. However, it was discovered that the western barrow ditch surrounded a central pit nearly 5m wide and 1.4m deep which contained Beaker pottery. The southern barrows were discovered to have been dug into gravel. The centre of the eastern barrow was cut through by a post medieval ditch. No trace of the central burial was found, but three cremations were found just inside ditch - one of which was accompanied by a middle Bronze Age decorated globular vessel. Other internal soilmarks proved to be treeholes. The ditch had a narrow gap on the south side, Outside the ditch to the N was a crouched inhumation burial and three cremation pits in a line. There were two other satellite cremations, one on the E and one to SW. On the E side of the barrow, there was an interrupted ditch containing freshly cut flakes and cores which stopped just short of the line of cremations. Aerial photographs had suggested three circular crops marks to the N, but only two proved to exist. These were dug into the the silt covering the gravel and proved to be shallower that those to the S. The easternmost was defined by a narrow gully only 0.3m deep, and had a very wide gap on the N side. There were no accompanying burials and few finds. The western barrow was the largest of the group, but its ditch was only 0.5m deep, there were no internal burials but a crouched inhumation was found on the SE side and another to the W. Where the fifth barrow had been proposed an extended Roman inhumation was found. The head lay to the south and had a silver ring at the neck and an amethyst pendant and copper ring below the pelvis. The hollow, a silted up paleaochannel, running W-E between the barrow group was stripped for 170m. The hollow was 15-25m wide and more than 6000 finds were recovered from the exposed surface. From trenches cut across the hollow some 9000 struck flints, 4000 sherds of Neolithic pottery and 2600 fragments of animal bone were recovered. The flintwork included axe fragments, flaked axes and leaf-shaped arrowheads. Quern fragments were also present. The western limit of the site was marked by the former course of the Thames and patches of burning and spread of pottery and struck flints were found of Early Neolithic date. Visible in the surface of the hollow and in the gravel adjacent on the south a small settlement of probable Bronze Age date was found, consisting of a scatter of pits, a well, a buondary ditch and arcs of enclosure gully. (B12)