Land off St Helen’s Avenue Benson Oxfordshire

During the latter part of July and early August 2016 Oxford Archaeology undertook a
trial trench evaluation on land at Benson, Oxfordshire, centred on NGR 461870,
191280. The site was composed of two fields, the eastern of which was subdivided
into five paddocks. The evaluation comprised 22 trenches targeting both
geophysical anomalies and potentially blank areas.
Within the north-eastern part of site a number of burials were discovered on a range
of alignments. The rest of the site contained a Roman settlement with 4m wide
boundary ditches and 1st century pottery. A number of rectilinear enclosures were
found within this boundary ditch and many large storage pits. These both produced
a fair amount of datable material, predominantly 1st century.