We are currently excavating all four trenches in the inner enclosure and hope to venture into the outer enclosure’s test pits by the end of August.

No experience is needed, just book in and come along and learn from our experts. Apart from ‘digging’, we sieve the soil we excavate, wash and clean the artefacts we find, use our surveying and drawing equipment to extend our knowledge and records and take photographs and video footage of the site and the artifacts we find.

So, if you are interested, please call our fieldwork co-ordinator, John Laker, on 01628 481792 for more information. If you are not an AIM member and wish to be covered by our insurance, temporary membership is available on the day at £2/day

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As we had concluded most of the digging work using spades, both stout boots, or Wellington boots, are now acceptable on site.

If you are free and available, we would love to see you on either, or both, days.

Non-members will need to pay a £2 temporary membership in order that they are covered by our insurance.

If you are interested, please call our fieldwork co-ordinator John Laker, on 01628 481792 for more information.

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This weekend conference will cover the rise of archaeological projects involving local people and has sparked and debate about the ethos of the exciting new sub-discipline of community and public archaeology.
Speakers will share experiences about initiatives where they have sought to involve both community groups and the public. It will cover the impact of community and public archaeology on the rest of the archaeological world; and address national issues at a regional level

Contact: www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/details.php?id=O09P246AHR

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Jill Hind works for Oxford Archaeology, having retrained from being a science teacher. Much of her time has been devoted to researching the history of sites across England and Wales in advance of development or for conservation and management plans. Jill is also involved in strategic studies, helping to develop policy and guidance on various aspects of the historic environment. She worked on the preparation of the Urban Archaeological Database for the City of Oxford and this, plus her experience of sites within the area, led to her involvement in the Solent Thames Research Framework project .

Jill started her talk by explaining that although she is an archaeologist, she is not one that gets her hands dirty, most of her work is concerned with policy planning and guidance. She is currently writing about the post medieval period for Oxford Archaeology’s “Thames Through Time” publication.

Tonight she would be covering the post medieval Thames and its tributaries from the start to Teddington Lock which is the non-tidal part looking at the history of the area from 1540 to 1900, through archaeological investigations and surviving structures/buildings. The Thames obviously had a huge impact on communication, resources, settlement and recreation and Jill covered various aspects of locks, mills, bridges, railways, turnpike roads, wharves, boatyards along this part of the Thames.

Jill explained that the Thames was not navigable the whole way at this time. In 1635 flash locks were replaced with pound locks which were more efficient, originally they were turf sided with timber lining and later stone was used. She mentioned that Wessex Archaeology had investigated the restored Monkey Lock, a scheduled ancient monument. Canals were also built to widen and straighten or bypass the river where it was impassable.

Bridges included lift and swing types; there are two remaining toll bridges, at Whitchurch and Swinford. Jill showed us picture of the Maidenhead railway bridge and mentioned that Windsor bridge was the same design as the Tamar road bridge. Oxford swing bridge, which carried the LMS railway line, is a scheduled monument.

Railways brought more prosperity to the area, people and goods could be moved much faster than by water, however not everyone thought it a good idea, Oxford University opposed the railway station, it was the same for Eton college. Queen Victoria was also reported to be unhappy about it.

In the late 17th century Turnpike Acts enabled tolls to be collected on roads and made it mandatory to list the charges. The High Wycombe toll house is now housed at Chiltern Open Air Museum, there is also one on Folly Bridge at Oxford, now used as a newsagents.

Mills were obviously prevalent along the river, as were paper mills, one with a tar paper roof, (tubes of tar paper were also used for building walls). Jill also talked about the Brick kilns, and pottery kilns at Nettlebed and Boarstall where some excavations had taken place.

Other items of interest were the timber factories, especially in High Wycombe and the micro brewery in Thame; Osney was the first electric power station in Oxford and Ravenscroft lead crystal used sand from the Stonor estate.

Jill explained that the post medieval period was not popular for excavating because a lot of the buildings had been either knocked down or had been reused.

Jill’s talk was full of information and she gave us an insight to the history of this great river.

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As Archaeology in Marlow have surveyed Medmenham Camp, both dimensionally, and partially with geophysics, Dr Tubb went on to consider these results. There is certainly a suggestion of a ring ditch, implying that the site may have been of some importance before the hillfort was constructed. The area on the geophysical results thought to have been a dewpond, Dr Tubb thinks is probably more like to be as the results of quarrying, as it looks to have gone down to the bedrock.

The location of Danesfield was probably picked because of the naturally steep cliff and its position in a reentrant valley. Not much can be said about the site in terms of previous archaeological reports as they do not seem to be available, but Danesfield and Medmenham are unusual in that both seem to have their entrances in the Northwest quadrant, whereas a significant proportion of hillforts (40%) have their entrances to the East. There has been no Early Iron Age pottery recorded and this ties in with the theory that hillforts in the Chilterns tend to be more Middle Iron Age, than Early Iron Age.

Medmenham and Danesfield are peculiarly close together. It has been suggested that they were constructed by two different tribes, but Dr Tubb points out that just South of Swindon, there are two hillforts, Barbury and Liddington, similarly close together, but not contemporary. Liddington is earlier than Barbury. So it is possible that the two Marlow hillforts represent a shift from one site to another, rather than the two sites being contemporary. More work needs to be done to establish dating evidence.

Further down the river, Taplow suffered from being misidentified as a garden feature. It’s not clear how this happened as it was identified on the maps.
Oxford report findings show enclosures small early and larger later one, with the mound inside the bottom of the later enclosure and lots of metal finds.

There was a series of fencelines and postholes, parallel, following approximately same course. All aligned, but using different construction techniques, sometimes inheriting features from previous constructions, notably a v-shaped ditch lined with trees similar to Boscombe Down lines of postholes. There was then a period of abandonment 500 years and then u-shaped ditches that don’t respect the old palisade lines, eventually replaced with a huge earth rampart, replacing the timber.

Wittenham clumps similar to Taplow as there’s an inner late bronze age enclosure, middle ironage round it, and outside (in car park) black earth site. Black earth sites are areas of darker, greasier soil with feasting debris and deliberate deposits of domestic material. Sometimes these sites can be several feet thick and spread over a large area. To call them middens is missing some of their symbolic purpose. Blewburton hill has black earth rampart-outlines, covered in chalk, underneath the earth ramparts, possibly using the past to validate their present by incorporating this older material into their new structure.

Generally hillforts usually have associated field systems and these have not been yet located for the Marlow hillforts and it would be interesting to see where they were. It is important to remember that not all hillforts were occupied and could in fact have been a location to assess what is “on the hoof” as cattle were an important resource in prehistory, as now.

Balksbury has intact delta enclosure shallow ditch with bank inside it. During the Bronze Age the area inside of the hillfort was probably used for cattle (black earth etc in one corner particularly), but in the Early Iron Age it was completely empty, and was reused and settled in the Late Iron Age.

When looking at hillforts, it’s important to consider the activity that occurs outside the hillfort. As well as black-earth sites, other evidence exists outside the ramparts of hillforts. Outside Cherbury fake copper vessels were found (copper becoming scarce by this point) and some new-fangled iron pins for decoration. Iron was not used in the same way as bronze, initially, it was a material of decoration, of special status-indicating items.

Dr Paul Tubb is a landscape archaeologist with 30 years experience, mostly in the chalklands of Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire. He is particularly interested in Bronze and Iron Age settlement. He is a tutor on the Part-Time Archaeology degree course at Bristol University and also teaches Continuing Education courses at Oxford and Reading.

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