Castle Hill Little Wittenham Oxfordshire

This report describes the results of archaeological investigations carried out between
2003 and 2006 on behalf of the Northmoor Trust in the parishes of Little Wittenham and
Long Wittenham, Oxfordshire. The work included examination of cropmarks, large-scale
geophysical surveys covering over 60 hectares, fieldwalking covering just over 50
hectares and three seasons of significant excavation in 2003, 2004 and 2005, plus
further limited excavations in 2005 and 2006.
Geophysical survey was concentrated in and around the scheduled hillfort at
Castle Hill, Little Wittenham (Oxfordshire SAM No. 208), and revealed a smaller hilltop
enclosure within the hillfort that excavation established was of Late Bronze Age date.
The geophysics further suggested that features within the hillfort were otherwise
scattered, an impression largely borne out by trenching. A section across the hillfort
ditch and rampart failed to produce conclusive dating evidence, though in the interior
both Early and Middle Iron Age pits were found, including a number containing human
burials or bones. The hillfort ditch appears to have been kept clear throughout the Iron
Age.
The hillfort was also used in the late Roman period, when very large rectangular
pits were dug, and midden material was piled up behind and over the back of the Iron
Age rampart. Pottery suggests a later 4th century date. People were also buried in the
interior at this time. Saxon finds were very few, but a period of medieval occupation in
the late 12th/13th centuries is attested by a medieval pit and a probable quarry of the
same date. Coring of peat deposits by students from Oxford Brookes beside the Thames
north of Castle Hill provided evidence of the environmental succession from the Early
Iron Age onwards.
On the plateau below the hillfort a dense settlement was revealed by cropmarks
and geophysical survey stretching 700 m west, to Hill Farm and beyond. This included a
Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age midden some 50 m across, a Middle Iron Age
curving boundary ditch 700 m long, with smaller sub-rectangular enclosures adjacent,
and Early and Middle Iron Age penannular enclosures, four-post structures and pits.
There seems to have been a shift southwards and westwards in the Middle Iron Age.
Ditches of Late Iron Age or early Roman enclosures were also found near to Hill Farm.
The Roman settlement evidence was mainly of 2nd-3rd century date, and
appears to have consisted of four enclosures, one of which contained a substantial
building (now largely destroyed) with mosaic tesserae, painted plaster and a tiled roof.
This enclosure was approached by a ditched trackway, and a second larger enclosure
alongside the track further west may have contained a second building. A Roman
inhumation was found north-west of this. A third enclosure was partly revealed north of
Hill Farm, and a fourth enclosure (undated) lay alongside parallel Roman field
boundaries west of Hill Farm. No substantial evidence of later settlement was found,
although Saxon finds had been made previously west of Hill Farm.
The results of the project have confirmed an unique combination of elements, a
Late Bronze Age hilltop enclosure with an external settlement and an adjacent midden.
In the Early Iron Age the hilltop enclosure was replaced by the hillfort, where feasting
occurred, while the adjacent settlement around the midden grew to be one of the largest
in the Upper Thames valley. The use of the midden stopped in the Middle Iron Age, and
a long boundary ditch may have divided this ancestral area off from further settlement,
but beyond the boundary settlement expanded yet further west. There was also more activity within the hillfort, including a much greater emphasis on burial, and the hillfort
ditch was maintained throughout the Iron Age.
In the Roman period the settlement changed character but continued, and
probably included a small villa, while the hillfort itself was probably reoccupied in the
4th century AD. Intriguingly both Roman cremations and inhumations continued to be
buried around and within the hillfort, suggesting a continuity of burial location spanning
at least 1000 years.
Geophysical survey and evaluation trenches were also dug across a cropmark
complex at Neptune Wood east of Long Wittenham, revealing an Early Iron Age
enclosure ditch, a Roman trackway and associated fields, and a pair of large Middle
Saxon pits or waterholes. There were also possible early medieval ditches and later
cultivation furrows.
A combination of geophysical survey and test trenching was carried out in
Clifton Meadow by the Thames, to trace the continuations of a Roman trackway crossing
an earlier field system. Both features were traced into the meadow, and waterlogged
evidence of Roman haymeadow recovered, but no dating evidence was recovered from
the earlier boundaries.
A riverside terrace behind Little Wittenham manor was trenched, and late and
post-medieval terracing appears to belong to the creation of a formal garden.
A variety of other fields were walked and/or surveyed by magnetometer, some over
cropmark sites, producing evidence of Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and
Roman occupation.