Thornhill Farm, Fairford, Gloucestershire An Iron Age and Roman pastoral site in the Upper Thames Valley Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph No 23 2004

Between 1979 and 1989 the Oxford Archaeological
Unit (now Oxford Archaeology) undertook extensive
excavations of a late prehistoric and Roman
cropmark complex at Claydon Pike and Thornhill
Farm, Fairford, Gloucestershire. The excavation of
the western element of the complex, Thornhill
Farm, forms the subject of this report. The excavations
were implemented with the co-operation of
the Amey Roadstone Corporation (ARC) and
formed part of a co-ordinated archaeological
response to the threat posed by gravel extraction
during the creation of the Cotswold Water Park. The
work at Thornhill Farm involved the excavation of
numerous evaluation trenches, four open area
excavations and extensive salvage operations over a
total area of approximately 40.5 ha.
The excavations recovered an unusually complete
plan of a highly specialised agricultural unit
consisting of a dense palimpsest of paddocks and
larger enclosures, which appear to have been
designed for the effective control and management
of livestock. Environmental evidence confirmed
that the immediate landscape was characterised by
rough pasture which was grazed by large herbivores
including horses and cattle. Ceramic evidence
suggests that the earliest enclosures were dug
during the middle Iron Age, and that the site
continued to develop and be remodelled along
similar lines through to the early Roman period.
Evidence for human occupation was recovered in
the form of relatively large amounts of domestic
waste consisting mainly of pottery, burnt limestone
and animal bone. Although a number of roundhouses
were revealed, the precise spatial organisation of the
settlement proved difficult to discern, largely because
of the relatively high degree of truncation and the
ephemeral nature of the structural remains.
The site was radically reorganised during the
early 2nd century AD when the tightly knit group of
paddocks and enclosures which had characterised
earlier periods was replaced by a series of newly
constructed trackways.