Iron Age and Roman Settlement in the Upper Thames Valley Excavations at Claydon Pike and other sites within the Cotswold Water Park Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph No. 26 2007

The Cotswold Water Park Project is a landscape
study centred upon parts of the Upper Thames
Valley in the southern and eastern hinterland of the
Roman town of Cirencester, within what is now the
Cotswold Water Park. The report is based upon four
key excavated sites.
Excavations on the 1st gravel terrace at Claydon
Pike between 1979 and 1983 revealed two areas of
settlement, ranging from the middle Iron Age to the
medieval period. The middle Iron Age settlement
appears to have shifted across three gravel islands
over time. The inhabitants were pastoralists with a
subsistence led mixed animal economy. In the early
1st century AD a nucleated settlement was established
about 120 m to the south at Longdoles Field,
characterised by a series of large and intensively
recut enclosures, gullies, pits and substantial
boundary ditches. Within the site was identified a
number of activity areas associated with domestic
habitation, small-scale metalworking, and stock
management. It appears to have operated a largely
subsistence economy associated with cattle
ranching. The early 2nd century saw dramatic
changes, with the enclosures, gullies and ditches of
the earlier phase being replaced by two large rectangular
enclosures, a substantial aisled barn and an
aisled house. The economic basis of the site incorporated
the management of hay-meadows,
probably on a commercial basis to sustain the needs
of growing local population centres such as
Cirencester. At some point during the early 4th
century AD, there appears to have been deliberate
and widespread clearing of the site, which was
undoubtedly connected with the establishment of a
modest masonry footed villa on the site comprising
two separate structures, the southern of which
incorporated a hypocaust room. A small inhumation
cemetery and circular shrine were also part of
the wider complex. The final abandonment of the
villa at Claydon Pike is unclear, but there is some
evidence to indicate activity of some kind until the
start of the 5th century. A small group of inhumation
burials cut through the villa building, three of
which were radiocarbon dated to the middle Saxon
period. Further intermittent activity took place on
site in the medieval period.
Aseries of salvage excavations between 1986 and
1988 at Neigh Bridge, Somerford Keynes revealed
part of a late Iron Age and Roman settlement. Alate
Iron Age/early Roman farmstead was replaced by a
system of trackways and ditched enclosures and a
large aisled building in the early 2nd century AD.
The building was associated with a large quantity
and variety of tile, and there are some indications
that it may have been at least in part a tile depot.
Sculptural fragments of the Capitoline triad point to
an official religious presence. No features can be
securely dated much beyond the end of the 2nd
century AD, although a substantial number of late
3rd and 4th century coins and small finds suggests
late Roman activity of some kind.
Three archaeological investigations were undertaken
at Whelford Bowmoor in 1983, 1985 and 1988.
The earliest features revealed during excavations
comprised a regular system of sub-rectangular
enclosures, dating to the early/mid 2nd century
AD. The enclosures were probably used for
livestock management. A rubble building platform
and associated ‘midden’ deposits, date from the
later 2nd to early/mid 3rd century AD, when many
of the earlier enclosures had gone out of use. There
is no evidence for late Roman activity.
Archaeological evaluation and excavation took
place at Stubbs Farm, Kempsford from 1991 to
1995, specifically targeting a multi-ditched circular
and rectangular enclosure known from cropmark
evidence. The two enclosures would seem to relate
to separate phases of activity, with the circular
feature having a very tentative Iron Age/early
Roman date. The rectangular enclosure clearly
belongs to a later phase of activity, in the 2nd and
3rd centuries AD. The overall character of this
phase is indicative of a low status rural farmstead
operating a largely pastoral economic regime
amidst the grasslands of the lower gravel terrace
and floodplain. The settlement appears to have
gone out of use by the second half of the 3rd
century AD.