Monument record 757/0/1 - Possible Hillfort Ramparts With Iron Age & Romano-British Finds

{1} Pottery recovered as follows: 5 x Iron Age wares, 1 x Romano-British wares.
The full ceramic sequence was found, located at the edge of the level hilltop. A dirty layer of undated, re-deposited clay was revealed lying above the natural. This might be interpreted as the last remnant of a ploughed-out bank, the clay deriving from the lower levels of an associated ditch.

{2} Test pits sunk 100m south-east of the church produced quantities of Iron Age pottery in association with features cut into the natural and evidence of a thick layer of re-deposited clay interpreted as the degraded remains of a ploughed out bank.
The work prompted re-analysis of aerial photographs which showed a parch mark previously interpreted as a medieval headland, running through the pasture field south-east of the church. This appeared to represent a curvilinear feature which mirrored the curious loop followed by the present road to Silverstone around the eastern and northern sides of the churchyard. Together road and parch mark seemed to define one end of a large oval enclosure, its return being obscured by a farmhouse to the west of the church.
The magnetometer survey revealed the same curvilinear feature seen on the aerial photographs and surviving as an ill-defined scarp on the ground, lying on the inner edge of what appears to be a ditch 6m wide.

{3} Part of the circuit of the ramparts has been followed by a modern road, and other parts lie concealed among a tangle of churchyard hedges and neighbouring built-up farmyard. The clearest area lies to the south, in pasture fields, though traces of the ramparts here appear to have been levelled by former ploughing.
The original rampart circuit may perhaps have been rather more polygonal than sub-circular. Appears to be univallate. Difficult to assess, due to the degraded nature of the banks and ditches. A surmised entrance to the south-east is postulated from a consideration of the alignment of long-distance Roman (and possibly pre-Roman) roads and trackways (see further comments in Section 5).

{4} The western extent of an enclosure, marked by a bank and broad ditch, c. 6m in width, but of unknown depth, was clearly defined, turning east and mirroring the loop in the Silverstone road to the east.

<1> Jones, R L C, 2005, Report on Test Pits In and Around Whittlebury Village: June to August 2002, p.11-12 (checked) (Report). SNN105176.

<2> Jones R., 2005, Northamptonshire Archaeological Society: Whittlebury Hillfort, (checked) (Website). SNN107406.

<3> Hatton G.; Hayward D., 2014, Whittlebury, Northants, (part checked) (Report). SNN109943.

<4> Jones R.L.C.; Pears B., 2003, Excavation and Geophysical Survey at St Mary's Church, Whittlebury, Northamptonshire (Draft), p.10 (checked) (Interim Report). SNN105857.

<4> Jones, R L C, 2004?, Excavation and Geophysical Survey at St Mary's Church, Whittlebury, Northamptonshire (Draft), p.10 (checked) (Report). SNN112081.

Record last edited

Mar 25 2015 1:19PM