Monument record 4860/6/1 - Possible Medieval/Post Medieval Woodland Boundary

{1} Rough location plan of woodland bank at edge of Hazelborough Wood following basic earthwork survey. The bank was exposed by tree clearance adjacent to the A43. It is up to 4m wide x 0.5m high, with an open ditch to the east side.

{2} The bank and ditch possibly represent a woodland boundary but no evidence of its date of construction was found. The ditch currently holds water and still functions as a drain so it can be assumed that it has been cleaned out at intervals in the recent past. The bank survives as a low feature but has been relatively severely denuded in this zone, possibly from the construction of the present A43. The feature survives better further away from the road.

{3} A trial trench was dug to examine the ditch and bank recorded during earthwork survey in Hazelborough Wood in March 2000. Only a small length of the features lies within the road corridor, and the trench was located within the only suitable position within the designated CPO boundary.
Both ditch and bank were exposed beneath the topsoil. To the north-west was an eroded hollow truncating the bank and subsoil. The ditch was aligned roughly north-east to south-west. It was over 2m wide x 1.2m deep. The primary fill produced no dating evidence. Above this was a mixed fill of saturated soils and rotting timbers from recent tree felling.
The bank ran along the north-western side of the ditch, again no dating material was recovered.
The bank and ditch possibly represents a woodland boundary, but no evidence for the date of its construction was found. The ditch still functions and has been cleaned out in the recent past.

{5} The ditch and bank are sinuous features running approximately parallel to the modern A43 between 8m and 26m from the road on a north-east to south-west alignment. The features survive in a varying state of preservation, being generally better preserved further away from the modern road. Trench 2 was positioned at the extreme margin of the road corridor where the earthwork was reasonably well preserved. A complete profile of the bank was not however obtainable.
The earlier ditch cut reached a depth of 1m below the modern ground surface. Its primary fill was an orange brown silty clay with charcoal, ironstone, limestone and flint nodules. The ditch cut was fairly sharp on the south-east edge, but more gradual on the north-west edge against the bank. The base of the cut was fairly flat.
The lower fill was sealed by a deposit of degraded bank material, the bank having partially collapsed into the ditch. More details given.
No archaeological finds or dating material was found within any of the deposits.
The bank and ditch possibly represent a woodland boundary. Trench 2 provided evidence of there being at least re-cut, but this appeared to be fairly recent. The ditch still holds water in places and still functions as a drain. The bank survives as a low earthwork feature, but has been severely denuded.

{6} A woodland boundary of probable medieval origin.

<1> JACKSON D.A., 1996, SMR Report Form, (checked) (SMR Report Form). SNN49577.

<2> Webster M.; Mudd A., 2000, A43 Road Improvement Silverstone And Brackley Hatch Sections Archaeological Evaluations: Stage 3, Ha, (checked) (Report). SNN100487.

<3> Hallam T., 2000, A43 Towcester To M40 Dualling Project, Silverstone and Brackley Hatch Sections, Archaeological Evaluations: Stage 3, Hazelborough Wood Trench, May 2000, p.1-2 (checked) (Report). SNN101389.

<4> 2000-01, A43 Dualling Project, Silverstone, Hazelborough Wood, (checked) (Note). SNN103990.

<5> Hallam T., 2001, A43 Towcester To M40 Dualling Project, Silverstone and Brackley Hatch Sections, Archaeological Evaluations: Stage 3, Hazelborough Wood Trench 2, p.1-2 (checked) (Report). SNN109978.

<6> MUDD A., 2002, A43 Towcester to M40 Dualling Project Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire Post-Excavation Assessment and Updated Project Design, 2002, p.9 (checked) (Report). SNN103239.

<7> Hall D.N., 2001, Northamptonshire Woodland Survey Archive, (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN109590.

<8> Hall D.N., 2000, Forest Enterprise Woodlands In Northamptonshire: Whittlewood Forest And Other Woods, Archaeological Survey, Part 3, (unchecked) (Report). SNN100485.

<9> Hall D.N., 2000, The Historic Landscape of Whittlewood Forest: Historic Landscape Mapping, (unchecked) (Report). SNN102634.

Record last edited

Apr 23 2015 4:29PM