Monument record 0237500000 - C450M SE OF HARDWICK CHURCH

Dimensions - Length 130m, Width 80m.
Plan Form - Rectangular.
Double rectangular enclosure, banked & open on 1 side, visible in AP & on the ground (B1).
No clue as to date. Tradition has it as a military earthwork or camp thrown up during the Civil War at the time of the battle of Aylesbury (B2).
Other less distinct features noted in adjacent fields (sketch plot) (B1).

Three medieval and/or post medieval rectangular enclosures and interconnected boundary ditches are visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as earthworks and cropmarks and were mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located in a field about 425 metres SE of St Mary’s Church and centred at SP 81016 18761, with blocks of medieval ridge and furrow cultivation earthworks immediately to the W and the E, a rectangular platform about 54 metres WSW-ENE by 35 metres NNW-SSE is bounded by a ditch up to 6 metres wide. Contiguous SSE of this is a second rectilinear ditch between 2 and 8.5 metres wide that bound an enclosure about 52 metres WSW-ENE and 45.5 metres NNW-SSE, within which are linear boundary banks 5.5 metres to 11 metres wide located around three sides of the enclosure’s perimeter. An aerial photograph taken in 2023 suggests a cropmark of a possible mound about 16.5 metres in diameter, though this is not visible in other imagery available. Contiguous with this on the WSW facing side is a third ditched enclosure about 71.5 metres WSW-ENE and 50 metres NNW-SSE. An extant field boundary on the WSW facing side forms the fourth side of the enclosure. The function of these features in unclear, but ditches and enclosures align with adjacent medieval ridge and furrow field systems, suggesting contemporaneity. Although visible over many years of aerial photography as cropmarks, recent remote sensing data shows that the features remain extant as low earthworks (4-12).