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Ceramic finds near Sarratt

For the past two years we have been conducting an extensive geophysical survey near the Chess at Sarratt. This has revealed numerous indications of tracks, walls and buildings. A vast array of Roman coins and artifacts have been found in this area since the 1960s and we are pretty sure there was a significant Romano-British settlement here.

In February 2008 we finally started subsurface work with a small test pit in an area where Roman tiles had already been found. This quickly uncovered several undated pottery sherds, a tile with the imprint of a hobnailed sandle, and another with a paw print, probably of a dog.

We are very hopeful that a more comprehensive excavation in summer/autumn 2008 will reveal much more about this fascinating site.

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Tile with hobnailed sandle imprint	Tile with paw imprint	Undated pottery fragments

Metal detectorist display at annual CVAHS Open Evening

A very well attended Open Evening in March 2008 heard talks by members of the Field and Records groups on their activities in the past year. One highlight of the evening was a display of finds by Matthew Wildman, a metal detectorist who is a member of the society. He works closely both with CVAHS and with the Buckinghamshire County Archaeology Service.

Matthew has been searching for finds in the Chess Valley for about two years now and has amassed a fascinating collection of Roman and medieval coins and metal artifacts. His coin finds run from Republican (pre-conquest) right through to the end of the Roman period in Britain, which confirms the long period of settlement in the area.

Roman brooch in the form of a chicken	Trajan denarius	Intaglio ring	Denarius Afican mint 47-46 BC

Searching for a Roman road at Sarratt

CVAHS were invited by the owners of a private property in Sarratt to investigate the presence of a Roman road believed to run across their orchard.. The suspected road is the Viatores (1964) Roman Road no.163 Verulamium to Silchester road where it crosses the river Chess and passes through Sarratt.

We performed a resistivity survey in late 2007 which revealed some interesting anomalies, and followed it up with two separate digs during March 2008. One trench exposed a packed flint and chalk trackway running alongside a robbed out wall footing, but unfortunately we found no dating evidence.

One mystery was that we uncovered a large number of old buttons across the site, mostly of bone and probably around 200 years old. Was there an unrecorded button factory here, or did somebody lose their button box?

The probable answer is interesting. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the mills along the Chess were dedicated to making paper. Rags are a key ingredient of paper and the buttons would have been cut off of old clothes and discarded during the manufacturing process.

Sarratt Buttons	Trench at Sarratt

Common Wood Excavation featured in Records of Buckinghamshire

CVAHS Field Group has published a report on its extensive excavations in Common Wood. The report by Yvonne Edwards, with contributions by Marion Wells and John Gover, appears in the 2008 edition of Records of Buckinghamshire, produced by the Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society www.bucksas.org.uk

Entitled Excavation of an Earthwork in Common Wood, Penn, and Discovery of a Romano-British Settlement, it describes our work carried out between 2003 and 2005.

The major archaeological feature of Common Wood is an earthwork enclosure located on a hilltop plateau. Excavation led to the discovery of a Romano-British settlement. An initial topographic survey revealed a subrectangular enclosure of about 1.5ha with a substantial outer bank, an inner ditch, a pond on the west side and a conspicuous, outward turning, entrance on the south side.

Excavation across the ditch in an area close to this entrance led to the recovery of quantities of household waste including hearth ash, fragments of jars and bowls dating from the late 1st to early 3rd centuries AD, a brooch and two pieces of quern stone. A metal detection survey of the excavation surfaces and surrounding area uncovered iron implements, possibly agricultural, two more brooches typical of the 1st century AD and coins dating to 1st to 3rd century AD.

The excavation of what appears to be a dump of tap slag and furnace fragments associated with other Roman-British refuse, points to a connection between the people living in the enclosure and iron working.

Plan of the Earthwork	Happy Diggers