Land off Windmill Place East Challow Oxfordshire

During June 2014 Oxford Archaeology carried out a trial trench evaluation on land
off Windmill Close, East Challow Oxfordshire on behalf of Bovis Homes. The
evaluation comprised 20 trenches, each measuring 30m by 1.5m arrayed across the
site.
The evaluation uncovered several shallow linear ditches some of which contained a
small assemblage of abraded prehistoric, Roman and medieval pottery, and a single
struck flint of prehistoric origin. The nature of the finds by no means provided firm
dating evidence for any of the features. Most of the features were aligned broadly
north-west to south-east, mirroring both the orientation of the present field
boundaries and the field plots shown on historic maps of 1753 and 1780. Roman
pottery retrieved from two of these features may hint at a Roman origin for these
remnant field systems, given the proximity of the known Roman villa to the north,
but given the abraded nature of the sherds and small size of the assemblage, may
equally be residual.
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