Monument record 0254500000 - MIDDLE CLAYDON

1763-6 2ND EARL VERNEY REMOVED PARSONAGE & ALMSHOUSES WHICH STOOD NW OF CHURCH, LEVELLED CHURCHYARD. NEW RECTORY, ALMSHOUSES & CEMETERY BUILT ON E CLAYDON-STEEPLE CLAYDON ROAD. NOTED AS A DMV (B1-3).
NO PATTERN OF DESERTION SURVIVES IN GROUNDS OF HOUSE. SOME VILLAGE SHRINKAGE AT SP721 258 (B4).

Ditches and banks of a probable medieval deserted settlement 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 between Claydon House and Middle Claydon village and centred at SP 72027 25532, the remains of boundary ditches aligned N-S and W-E create three contiguous but incomplete rectilinear enclosures, within which are pits and other amorphous earthworks. Centred roughly at SP 71974 25609 is a subcircular ditched enclosure that encloses an internal area about 46 metres in diameter. This may be a post-medieval parkland feature as the 1880 1st Edition OS map shows it to correspond to the boundary of a small woodland, but it sits within one of the ditched enclosures, so may be earlier in date. The boundary ditches of the enclosures are parallel with abutting fields of ridge and furrow cultivation, rather than the 18th century SSW-NNE alignment of Claydon House. Cutting through and across many of these features are 18th and 19th century parkland features associated with the house. On the southern boundary around The Rectory grounds is a ditch up to 13 metres wide and 215 metres long that may pre-date the building (5-13).