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Home , Bisham, Bray Wick, Datchet, Maidenhead, Old Windsor

NEWSLETTER 2019

Welcome to Archaeology’s newsletter for BERKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGY 2019 which gives news of Welcome to our new edititon of Berkshire Archaeology News recent archaeological work and discoveries within the five Unitary Authorities in east Berkshire. One particularly interesting project is the restoration and refurbishment of Nos 47, 48 and 49 High Street, Eton, which has revealed a building of 15th- century date at its core. Recording and investigation by Stonebow Heritage Ltd is revealing the fascinating history of these important

Grade II* listed buildings. Read more about it on page 6. Detail of the roof of 47-49 High Street, Eton © Stonebow Heritage Ltd

This year we have welcomed Both are heavily stylised but the Helena can be contacted by email Helena Costas to our team as image was as much to do with [email protected] she fulfils the role of Finds Liaison propaganda as accurate depiction. Officer for all of Berkshire, The gold ‘touchpiece’ dates to BERKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGY including . The the reign of Queen Anne (1702 – BERKSHIRE RECORD OFFICE post is part-funded by The British 1714). It was used in the ceremony 9 COLEY AVENUE Museum and Graham and Joanna of ‘Touching for the King’s Evil’, a READING Barker. Although only in post for disease of the lymph glands, also RG1 6AF a few months, she has been busy known as scrofula, which was E. [email protected] recording the discovery of objects popularly believed to be cured if T. 0118 937 5976 reported to her through the the monarch touched the sufferer. Portable Antiquities Scheme, most Each sufferer was given a token Late Iron Age silver coin frequently by metal detectorists. or ‘touchpiece’, pierced so that Late Roman silver coin On this cover are three recent it could be worn on a ribbon Gold ‘touchpiece’ of discoveries, two of silver, one of round the neck. One of Queen Queen Anne (1702-1714) gold, from the Royal Borough of Anne’s last ‘touchings’ was of reproduced by kind permission Windsor and . It is Samuel Johnson, the great literary of the Portable Antiquities Scheme interesting to note the changing figure of the 18th-century. depiction of the face between the Iron Age and Roman coins.

1 One of ’s earliest houses is revealed at Quarry

We have reported previously on the exciting discovery of a previously unknown Early Neolithic (4,000 – 3,500 BC) causewayed enclosure at Datchet, near Windsor, and the on-going archaeological work by Archaeology on behalf of CEMEX UK continues to astonish and surprise. Most recently, a Neolithic house has been revealed within the causewayed enclosure, just off centre. At this stage, it is unknown if the house pre-dates or is contemporary with the monument, but it is a further example of Neolithic architecture that has come to light in the discoveries collectively emphasise The remains of an Early Neolithic Middle Thames and Colne Valleys the density of Neolithic settlement house at Datchet Quarry west of in recent years. and activity in this part of Wessex. © Wessex Archaeology What is most striking is the large The Datchet house is rectangular scale of these buildings, which in plan and large in scale, being raises questions over their purpose around 15 metres long and 6 and function. Were they simply metres wide. The house was domestic dwellings or special equally divided into two large meeting and gathering places? At rooms, although there may have Datchet the juxtaposition of such A reconstruction of an Early been other internal divisions that a building alongside a causewayed Neolithic house image by Karen we now have no evidence for. enclosure will add important Nichols - © Wessex Archaeology The trenched foundations would new information to the debate. have held timbers to support a superstructure and roof, presumably of timber and thatch. This reconstruction demonstrates the size and scale of the building. It was a remarkable feat of design and engineering for a building constructed nearly 6,000 years ago.

It is a remarkable and rare survival but it is not unique in this part of Berkshire. Just a few years ago, the remains of five such buildings were found by Wessex Archaeology at Kingsmead Quarry, Horton, just a few miles to the south-east. These

2 The Horlicks Factory – a landmark building in

The Horlicks Factory at Slough is a landmark building in the town and a sign to train passengers from Wales and the west of England that London Paddington is not too far away. The factory was built in 1908 to the design of the company engineer A G Christiansen and was based on the company factory in Rascine, Wisconsin, USA. Horlicks was established in the USA around 1882 by the English immigrants James Horlick and his brother William. The Horlicks recipe combined dried malt and wheat flour with milk to produce a dried powder which could be made into a hot drink. It was hugely successful and the drink was used by Amundsen and Scott during their during the Second World War North and South Pole expeditions. The Horlicks Factory in Slough for the benefit of the Company’s © Berkshire Archaeology With its crenellated clock tower employees and a war memorial, commemorating the fallen of the and tall chimney, the factory The Horlicks War memorial two World Wars stands outside is a substantial, purpose-built, © Peter Underwood, reproduced the entrance to the factory. brick factory building facing on by kind permission of the to the railway. The large red Remembers’ The war memorial, now Grade letters, spelling Horlicks, on the website roof of the factory are a Slough II listed, depicts a tall grieving landmark. The proximity to the female figure and was sculpted railway enabled the Horlicks by Sir William Reid Dick, who Factory to bring malted barley, was responsible for many war wheat flour and fresh milk from memorials in England and their suppliers as raw materials abroad. The Horlicks memorial for blending and drying on is particularly notable as it site before being delivered to commemorates two members customers by train or road. of the Horlick family as being amongst the fallen. As is invariably the case, the factory complex has undergone The Horlicks Factory is a building additions, extensions and of considerable local interest modifications over time, although and part of Slough’s industrial the main factory façade remains heritage. The new owners, largely intact. Two largely Berkeley Homes, intend to retain subterranean air raid shelters were a substantial portion of the main built to the rear of the building building, which is locally listed. 3 ’s earliest parishioners revealed at St Mary’s Church

The very fine, Grade II* listed, St archaeological investigations by John Moore Heritage Services Mary’s Church at Wargrave lies within the historic settlement of in early 2018 in advance of the to the west of the High Street Wargrave. However in 2015 the construction of the new annexe. and provides an oasis of calm Trustees of the Church drew and tranquillity away from the up plans to build a new annexe Being within the Church’s village centre. Wargrave was first on the north side of St Mary’s graveyard, a complex sequence of documented in the 11th-century Church to improve facilities for inhumation burials was identified and the early settlement was the congregation and parishioners within the footprint of the new probably centred on the area of Wargrave. Given the historic annexe. The earliest burials were around the Church. The current and archaeological importance un-coffined and almost certainly Church dates from the 13th- of the Church, exploratory date to the medieval period. century when the settlement archaeological investigations Unfortunately the absence of was awarded a market charter were undertaken to inform any associated objects does not and the focus of the settlement decisions about the new annexe. enable dating of these burials was centred on the main road beyond the early 12th- to late from Reading to Henley. As a result, detailed archaeological 15th-centuries. Later burials There have been very few investigations were undertaken were made in coffins with coffin fittings enabling these burials to be dated up to the 19th-century. The burials were almost entirely of adults, suggesting that the burial of the young may have been elsewhere within the graveyard.

Research on the human remains recovered from the site is on- going and the results will shed light on the lives and deaths of the people and community of Wargrave which have been lost over the ages. Also notable was the recovery from the excavation of pottery sherds of prehistoric date. Although no deposits of these periods were identified, these finds do indicate that the site of the Church has been used for habitation long before the founding Two of Wargrave’s earliest of the medieval settlement. parishioners – medieval burials at St Mary’s Church © John Moore Heritage Services

St Mary’s Church, Wargrave in spring © Berkshire Archaeology 4 An important Saxon discovery near

In March 2018 Arwen Wood of Buckinghamshire’s Portable Antiquities Scheme office was informed about the discovery of two copper alloy vessels, found by a metal detectorist near Bisham. With the help of volunteers, including the Sussex Finds Liaison Officer Edwin Wood, a small emergency excavation was carried out. Assistance was provided by Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society, who kindly loaned excavation equipment.

vessel was excavated two iron The objects have been donated to spearheads were found tucked Buckinghamshire County Museum. behind, and, as it was lifted, a Due to the condition of the human toe bone was revealed, objects it was important to The two copper alloy vessels had confirming that the objects were stabilise and conserve them quickly. been hit by the plough so were funerary items buried with an A grant from the CBA Mick Aston extremely fragile and fragmentary, inhumation. Fund and additional funds from the so careful excavation was needed Friends of Buckinghamshire to collect the pieces. The first The inhumation burial was County Museum allowed for the vessel is a copper alloy flanged probably of a male due to the conservation by Drakon Heritage. bowl decorated with repousée presence of the spear heads but (raised decoration) in a late Roman this is not always the case. Only a It is hoped that more investigations style. The second is a hanging small part of the burial was of this important site near Bisham bowl or bucket from the Namur excavated in order to lift the will be carried out in the future. It region of Belgium. The two vessels vessels that had been is likely that there is a late 5th- or were block-lifted with the soil compromised by exposure. 6th-century cemetery on the site, contained within them to allow The inhumation burial was the study of which will help us to micro excavation of the vessels otherwise left in situ. The objects understand the pattern of in a controlled environment later date from around AD 475-550, and settlement in this part of the to check for additional objects or strongly suggest the area had links Thames Valley at this interesting organic material. As the second to the European continent. period in our history. It is hoped The finds are indicative of either a that the objects will be displayed as Excavation of the Saxon vessels first or second generation part of the new permanent in progress © Arwen Wood 2018 immigrant. The objects are galleries of the Buckinghamshire recorded as BUC-A84150, and can County Museum. The Saxon vessels and be viewed on the Portable weaponry afterconservation Antiquities Scheme database © Drakon Heritage, 2018 – www.finds.org.uk 5 Work on the M4 SMART Motorway reveals a previously unknown Iron Age village

Shortly after Junction 10 of the during its construction. Times visited reconstructed Iron Age M4, travellers towards London have since changed and the below round houses, for example at will have seen the establishment ground impacts of the work Butser in Hampshire and Castell of a sizeable construction for the M4 SMART Motorway Henllys in Pembrokeshire, and compound on the north side of are subject to archaeological will have been impressed by their the motorway, just after the A321 monitoring, investigation and robustness and functionality overbridge. The compound was recording by Archaeology. but also by the simple beauty of constructed to service the work their appearance. Such buildings required to upgrade the M4 west The Iron Age village covered an can survive for decades, with of London to a SMART motorway. area of no more than one acre suitable maintenance and re- Archaeological investigations ahead and was made up of at least ten thatching, and so it is entirely of construction of the compound round houses, although perhaps conceivable that this village was by Oxford Archaeology, on behalf no more than five round houses occupied for a century or more. of Highways England and Balfour were in existence at any one Beatty Vinci JV, revealed the plan time. It is clear from the site plan Oxford Archaeology continues of a complete earlier Iron Age that a number of roundhouses to study the artefacts and village, probably inhabited in the were replaced, either on the environmental materials middle of the first millennium BC. same footprint or slightly off their recovered from this Iron Age original position. The plan shows village and their research should It now seems remarkable that the they varied in size, presumably tell us more about the people M4 was originally constructed in reflecting dwellings for the larger who lived here, the economic the late 1960s and early 1970s round houses, and stores or basis of the settlement and the with virtually no archaeological workshops for the smaller round extent of its external contacts. investigations either before or houses. Many readers will have

Plan of the Iron Age village east of Junction 10 of the M4 © Oxford Archaeology

One of the Iron Age round houses from above © Oxford Archaeology 6 The ‘Cock Pitt’, a fine medieval building at Nos 47 – 49 High Street, Eton

‘The Cock Pitt’, 47-49 High Street, Eton, is a Grade II* listed building on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register. It was constructed in the 15th-century and has been extended in the 16th-, 18th- and 19th-centuries, creating two ranges to the rear. It is currently undergoing extensive conservation and detailed recording as part of redevelopment that will secure Wealdens’: two-bay buildings the survival of the building. Nos 47 – 49 High Street, with an open hall in one bay Eton prior to restoration and a jettied, storeyed second Heritage assessment took place in works © Stonebow Heritage 2015, when consent was granted bay, typically built as terraces in towns. Carpentry marks indicate for a residential development, The ‘knuckle bone’ floor retaining commercial use on the that these were part of a terrace © Stonebow Heritage ground floor of the medieval of four (No. 50 to the south is building. The site was sold in 2017 another). Smoke blackening and and the buildings were further evidence for louvres survive in the the late 19th-century, including assessed, involving the Society for roof of the two bays that were installation of shop frontages. the Protection of Ancient Buildings open halls. The second, jettied bays and Oxford Dendrochronology had shops on the ground floor and A “knuckle bone” floor in a rear Lab. In 2018, revised consent was living quarters above. Mortices outhouse might have been installed obtained to change the front at ground-floor ceiling level by the second of two butchers range into two 2-storey units indicate the locations of top-hung living at the terrace, in 1551 and using the original medieval party shutters onto the road, the steep 1660. This floor construction, wall. The medieval timber frame original stairs, and stud-walled widespread in southern England and its surviving wattle and daub passages from the front door to during the late 17th-/early 18th- panels were carefully conserved, a back door, one of which was centuries, may be the source and detailed archaeological discovered behind modern plaster. of the building’s name, although investigation took place. archaeological examples are found Development should continue this Ceilings were installed in the in butcheries, leatherworkers and summer. Further archaeological open-hall bays, and the whole houses but not cock pits. No. 48 monitoring and investigation front elevation jettied, during was the Adam & Eve Inn from at during groundworks behind the 16th- or 17th-centuries. The least 1624 until c.1750, when it the building are also planned. gabled extension along the north moved to No. 51. An association passage was probably added by with beer continued, as one of The Cock Pitt was probably 1521. Around 1700, a Queen the ‘cottages’ was occupied by a built by the Dean and Canons of Anne-style two-gabled brick brewer in 1797. During the late Windsor as half of a speculative southern rear range was built, 19th- and 20th-centuries, the development of town houses in which leaded windows and building housed a boot-maker, with shops. Dendrochronology fireplaces survive. Substantial brick grocer, antique shop, tea rooms, a indicates construction around extensions to both ranges were café, and then an Indian restaurant. 1440. The building’s first phase built in the early 19th-century. comprises two of a row of ‘half- The building was remodelled in 7 Medieval settlement and industry in Slough

Slough Cemetery and had evidence for in situ burning excellent preservation and the Crematorium and Arbour Park, with reddened clay and charcoal presence of a number of fine, the home of Slough Town FC, lie deposits but no other material was decorated vessels, suggests that a short distance apart along the recovered that suggested what the these pits represent the remains of Stoke Road. These two important purpose of these pits was. Our a settlement, perhaps a small farm. local amenities share one notable best suggestion is that they were aspect: important medieval buried dug to extract the fine brickearth There is no documentary or remains have been found at deposits, which are very suitable cartographic evidence for a farm both sites in the last few years. for making clay tiles. While there or settlement in the medieval was no direct evidence for the period in this location in the Prior to the construction of making of tiles on the site, such medieval period but it is clear that Arbour Park, exploratory as kilns or dumps of kiln waste, the area around and under Slough archaeological investigation the evidence for burning suggests was widely used in the medieval revealed a medieval industrial site. some form of manufacture and early modern periods. Several very large and deep pits was taking place nearby. Traces of many of those small were found from which late 11th- medieval settlements and farms and 12th-century medieval pottery Just a little to the north-west, have been lost but archaeological was recovered. Some of the pits archaeological investigations investigations, such as those at prior to a proposed extension Arbour Park and the Cemetery to Slough Cemetery revealed are now revealing them. further medieval pits. Again the pits were both deep and wide and full of medieval pottery, but here a century or two later than at Arbour Park, dating from the 13th- and 14th-centuries. At Slough Cemetery, however, the amount of medieval pottery, its

Arbour Park, home of Slough Town FC © Berkshire Archaeology

Medieval quarry pit with burnt material from Arbour Park ©Thames Valley Archaeological Services 8 Early prehistoric monuments and a Saxon village are revealed at , near Maidenhead

In the 18th-century Bray Wick was a small hamlet lying between Maidenhead and Bray, before it was consumed into suburban Maidenhead from the early 20th- century onwards. However the area retains a rural feel with the open spaces of Braywick Sports Centre, Braywick Cemetery and Braywick Nature Centre. The early history of the hamlet was recently revealed in advance of the construction of a new leisure centre on the site of the former golf driving range, immediately north of the Cemetery.

Little else was deposited with these buildings were used within these pots except for a few the 5th- to early 7th-centuries fragments of animal bone and AD, after the decline of the major some hazelnut shells. These Roman towns and when southern remains may be all that survive England returned to an almost of a settlement of the later entirely rural settlement pattern. Neolithic period. They are typical Finds from the Saxon houses at of this period locally, evidence Bray Wick included locally made for buildings and structures pottery, some clay loom weights being almost entirely absent. and just one personal item, an iron Around a millennium later, a brooch. Maidenhead is well known Bronze Age funerary monument as a medieval settlement. These was built on the site. Originally a discoveries have excitingly revealed Following an exploratory mounded round barrow, all that Maidenhead’s Saxon antecedents. investigation, Thames Valley survived was the circular ditch Archaeological Services undertook from which the material to create a more detailed excavation the mound was excavated. Those Decorated later Neolithic which revealed that the earliest buried within or below the mound (c, 3,000 BC) pottery from inhabitants in this area were active have long since been lost but the Bray Wick ©Thames Valley in around 3,000 BC in the later area’s role in commemorating Archaeological Services Neolithic period. Three shallow the dead continues with the pits, clustered close together, were adjacent Braywick Cemetery. The ring ditch from a dug and in to which were placed Bronze Age burial mound some fine decorated vessels. These Another entirely unpredicted adjacent to Braywick vessels are of a type known as discovery was the identification Cemetery © Reproduced Peterborough Ware, having been of six Saxon houses, spread over by kind permission of Wates. found in large quantities in East a wide area, and representing Photograph by Brett Van-Sant Anglia, and they are distinctive by the remains of a Saxon hamlet. their highly impressed decoration. Radiocarbon dating indicates that 9 The story of the discovery of Saxon and early medieval settlement in the 1950s at

The village of Old Windsor nestles This is compounded by the on the south side of the River excavation archive being split Thames between between , where and . The parish church the finds were donated in the of St Peter and St Andrew lies 1970s, and Historic Environment somewhat divorced from the main Scotland in Edinburgh, where the settlement at the end of Church site archive was deposited on Road close to the . Hope-Taylor’s death in 2001. However the historic settlement of Old Windsor was centred on the However a recent project, area around the Church. In 1951 funded by Historic England a sewer trench was dug south of and undertaken by Berkshire Church Road and the observant Archaeology and Wessex vicar noticed the large number Archaeology, has undertaken a of fragments of ancient pottery rapid assessment of the archive to in the spoil from the trench. He understand better its completeness contacted the British Museum and coherence. In addition for who recognised the significance of the first time the finds archive the Saxon and medieval pottery. held at Reading Museum has been Excavations followed between accurately quantified with the 1953 and 1958 under the direction support of members of Berkshire of the late Dr Brian Hope- Archaeological Society, Berkshire Taylor, one of Britain’s foremost Archaeological Research Group archaeologists at that time. and the Old Windsor community. We now know, for example, The excavations revealed a that there are 38,197 sherds of remarkable sequence of Saxon and pottery, almost entirely of Saxon Early Norman remains from the or early medieval date, and 40,449 7th- to 11th–centuries, including pieces of animal bone. The pottery a mid-Saxon settlement, a 9th- in particular is an extremely century mill leat and watermill, important assemblage for this Volunteers at Reading Museum and a series of high quality period in England. It is hoped quantifying the Old Windsor buildings and finds indicative of that the results of this project finds©Wessex Archaeology a late Saxon and early Norman will lead to further work on this royal complex. The results of important archive in the future. A watercolour of an Hope-Taylor’s excavations led One unusual discovery amongst archaeologist found in the to the designation of the site the archive during the project archive and almost certainly as a Scheduled Monument. was a charming water colour of the work of Hope-Taylor an archaeologist, undoubtedly Reproduced courtesy of Unfortunately the results of Hope- drawn by Hope-Taylor who Reading Museum - Taylor’s excavations have never was also a well-known artist. © Brian Hope-Taylor, image been analysed and published. Reading Museum (Reading Despite a programme of post- Borough Council) excavation work in the 1980s, remarkably little detail of the excavations has been published. 10 An Early Roman farm at Newell Green,

Fairclough Farm lies north of Bracknell on Watersplash Lane, Newell Green. The Farm has been in existence for a number of centuries with a group of buildings shown here on Rocque’s Map of Berkshire, drawn in 1761. Evidence that the land around about has been farmed for millennia has recently come to light with investigations in 2018 and 2019 by Foundations Archaeology and Cotswold Archaeology revealing the remains of a 1st-century AD farm just a few metres south-west of the present Fairclough Farm.

Ditches delimited an enclosed area, within which were shallow pits containing domestic debris and rubbish. This mostly consisted of broken pottery vessels, largely locally made. The design and shape of the vessels suggests they were made in the 1st-century AD but it is difficult to assign them a date either prior to or after Claudius’ invasion of Britain in AD 43. There on Harvest Ride. Here the remains Excavations in progress of were already close links and of at least four round houses an Early Roman farm at trade with the Roman Empire on were identified. The Iron Age Fairclough Farm, Bracknell continental Europe at this time farm was probably occupied in © Foundations Archaeology in southern Britain and so these the 3rd- and 2nd-centuries AD. remains can be considered as These two modest archaeological Early Roman pottery from Roman even if they date to the discoveries demonstrate that Fairclough Farm, Bracknell earliest part of the 1st-century AD. the landscape north of Bracknell © Cotswold Archaeology was being inhabited and farmed Unfortunately no building remains throughout the later Iron Age and were identified. Either the Roman periods and has continued enclosure was used for farming to do so until the present day. activities only or the remains were too slight and ephemeral to survive. These Roman remains lie just a hundred metres north of the remains of an earlier, Middle Iron Age settlement, identified in 1994 close to the Warfield Roundabout 11 Mars, metalworking and monitoring

In 2018 small scale excavations Excavations in progress at in advance of a new all-weather Crosfields School, Reading sports pitch at Crosfields School, © Thames Valley Reading, revealed a small Bronze Archaeological Services Age and Iron Age farmstead. A round house was dated The top of the underground to the early 9th-century BC, Cold War Monitoring while charcoal from a pit was Station at Arborfield Cross scientifically dated to the 5th- and © Berkshire Archaeology 6th-centuries BC during the Middle A fine Romano-British copper alloy Iron Age. There was also evidence Roman copper alloy figurine statuette of Mars has recently been for iron production in the 2nd- to of Mars reproduced by kind found in Wokingham. The deity 4th-centuries BC also associated permission of the Portable is naked apart from a Corinthian with a single round house. This Antiquities Scheme style helmet on the back of his modest excavation has none-the- head and he is standing with a less produced interesting results, replaced an above-ground crooked and outstretched right especially another Middle Iron monitoring post and comprised a arm which ends in a break near Age site with evidence for iron watertight concrete box, buried the elbow. The left arm is held production. The modest structural underground but with an access against the torso and is broken at evidence may suggest that this was point and monitoring equipment the wrist. The right hand would the site’s main purpose and the protruding above ground. originally most likely have held houses where the metalworkers The Monitoring Station at a spear against which the figure lived were elsewhere. Arborfield Cross was only in would have been leaning. The use for less than a decade and helmet is finely detailed with crest One of the youngest archaeological was closed in 1968. The access and eye-holes being visible. The monuments in our region was point was closed off and the facial details are simply incised and recently recorded near Arborfield above ground elements removed include eyes, nose and mouth; the Cross by Wessex Archaeology. but the below-ground station almond-shaped eyes are suggestive A subterranean Royal Observer remained largely intact. of a Romano-British craftsman. Corps Underground Monitoring This form of Mars figurine is Station was re-identified and fairly common with nearly 50 recorded. Built in 1961, the examples known from Britain. Underground Monitoring Post