Monument record 0232300001 - HILLESDEN, CHURCH END

COMPLEX OF HOUSE SITES, TRACKWAYS & HOLLOW WAYS VISIBLE ON AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS. TRACINGS OF VISIBLE FEATURES IN CAS FILE (B2).
PART OF HILLESDEN SHRUNKEN VILLAGE, OR A SEPARATE SETTLEMENT? SEE CASS 01750; ALSO 02312.
SITE IN FIELDS TO WEST & NORTH-WEST OF HILLESDEN CHURCH (B1-2).

A complex of medieval hollow ways or trackways, boundary ditches, mounds and platforms are visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as earthworks and were mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located in fields NW of Hillesden village and centred at SP 68155 29243, the extensive village shrinkage earthworks extend over an area about 550 metres N-S and 675 metres W-E and comprises a network of interconnected linear ditches that may be trackways and hollow ways aligned NW-SE or NW-SW, forming a series of rectilinear and subrectangular ditched enclosures. Some of the enclosures contains ridge and furrow cultivation blocks, whilst others contain a series of parallel contiguous rectilinear and subrectangular earthwork platforms of various sizes, aligned NW-SE. Scattered across the settlement are circular and amorphous mounds and hollows (4-9).


(Centred SP 683292) Outline of roads and house platforms; DMV of Hillesden (B10)

Hillesden was originally an extensive village embracing at least 3 (and possibly 4) individual hamlets later reduced by depopulation. Surface evidence of the earlier phase is evident in non-surveyable boundaries roads and crofts although no house sites can be traced. Extensive new building and extension of the village is now under way.
See also SP 63 SE 22 and 24 (B11).

A rapid examination of air photography shows the SMV earthworks and probably associated ridge and furrow. (SP 62 NE 24) (B12).

NRHE insert 2004 (B13).