Archaeological Discoveries on the Junctions 27 to 30 M25
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Safe roads, reliable journeys, informed travellers Archaeological Discoveries on the Junctions 27 to 30 M25 An executive agency of the Department for Transport It was only towards the end of the A1(M) M25 improvements, M1 original period of construction of the Section 5 M11 M25 that archaeologists were routinely Junctions 27-30 involved on road schemes. As a Section 1 result not all archaeological sites were Plans to create ring roads around Section 4 recorded, and information on what M40 London first appeared over 100 years lay beneath the M25 is patchy. The ago, but developed piecemeal. The current upgrade therefore provided an M4 LONDON North and South Circular roads were M25 important opportunity to examine areas early incarnations of this idea, but were M25 immediately adjacent. overtaken by the expansion of Greater London. Much of the route followed M3 The work covered by this booklet M20 by the M25, particularly on the south, extends around the north-eastern arc M26 Section 2 was first proposed as far back as M25 of the M25 from Junction 27 (with the 1937, but official recognition of an M25 M11) to Junction 30 (with the A13). orbital route only came in 1975. Begun All of the areas examined are shown M23 in 1971, most of the M25 was built in red, and those where significant between 1975 and 1986. Since then, archaeological remains were found the increase in traffic has led to the In 2008 the Highways Agency are labelled overleaf. The time periods introduction of variable speed limits to commissioned a major upgrade of represented by the discoveries are aid the management of flow, but traffic the M25, and Skanska Balfour Beatty Aerial view of ongoing improvements shown by coloured dots corresponding volume has continued to rise. Joint Venture was appointed to carry to the timeline. out the work. This is programmed to on the road itself. For example, extra be completed in 2014. It has involved screening using soil bunds has been the widening of some sections, the provided at various places, and drainage strengthening or replacing of a number improvements have necessitated the of bridges, and the improvement of digging of new ponds. Temporary many of the junctions. The drawing construction compounds were also shows the sections involved, and required. All of these have affected highlights in red the length covered by land adjacent to the M25, and so a Section 4. programme of archaeological monitoring and (where necessary) excavation has As well as additional lanes along been carried out by Oxford Archaeology the route, these road improvements working for Skanska Balfour Beatty Joint involve much other work that is not Venture. Machinery at work during the construction of the M25 Aerial view of the Passingford Bridge excavation Brentwood Codham Hall Bund, Tank 1762 and Hobbs Hole Strip Widening Passingford Bridge Widening M25 28 and Flood Alleviation Area Pond 1683 A12 29 Passingford N Bridge Folkes Lane Upminster Strip Widening Pond 1791 and Bund Strip Widening Harold Hill A127 Cranham Pond 1812 and Strip Widening M11 Pond 1615 Epping 27 Pond 1609 Pond 1605 M25 Pond 1824 and South Strip Widening M25 Ockendon Belhus Cutting Theydon Bois Nowadays construction takes care to avoid or minimise This booklet presents some of the 30 impacts upon archaeological sites as much as possible, highlights of the archaeological work. A13 so the archaeological work is often limited. A large The archaeological sites are spread over a proportion of the sites that were examined did not produce considerable distance, and so the results are Aveley significant archaeological remains, but rather than being a presented thematically and chronologically, rather disappointment, this is a testament to the strength of the than geographically as a series of stops along the modern planning system. modern road. Pre-modern Hunter-gatherers First Farmers Metal Users Field systems Hillforts Coinage Roads/forts Towns/industries English invaders Manors/castles/ Tudors/Stuarts, humans villages Reformation PALAEOLITHIC MESOLITHIC NEOLITHIC EARLY BRONZE AGE MIDDLE-LATE EARLY-MIDDLE LATE IRON AGE EARLY ROMAN LATER ROMAN SAXON MEDIEVAL POST-MEDIEVAL BRONZE AGE IRON AGE 350-300,000 BC 9000-4000 BC 4000-2400 BC 2400-1600 BC 1600-800 BC 800-50BC 50 BC-AD 43 AD 43-120 AD 120-410 AD 410-1066 AD 1066-1500 AD 1500-1800 dated by measuring the quantities of and scoured by the ice or by N Palaeolithic amino-acids in fossil shells. In living the meltwaters. The flints from Mar Dyke Hornchurch organisms all amino-acids are of type Belhus were not found where At Belhus Cutting, 3 km north of the L, but after death they very slowly they had been dropped, but North Ockendon present river Thames, the M25 cuts Corbets Tey change to type D. By comparing the had been carried by the Direction of flow through an earlier channel of the river. South Ockendon proportions of types L and D we can channel before coming Until about 500,000 years ago, the Orsett estimate how long ago they died. The to rest. Edge of floodplain Belhus Park Aveley Thames used to run much further north Low terrace channel here is 300,000 to of the Mar Dyke than nowadays, across what is now L. Thurrock 350,000 years old. Purfleet Essex. In the Anglian Ice Age, soon R R i i v R e s ive e Tilbury after this, the glaciers reached as far r r Tham Local archaeologists found a D a r e south as Finchley in North London, River Cray n Swanscombe variety of stone tools during Dartford t and diverted the course of the river the original construction of 0 Kilometres 5 south towards its current course. the M25 here, and another The Ockenden-Purfleet Loop flint flake in the recent ©Oxford Archaeology excavations, but these tools The Thames has continued to change are long-lived types that course after each Ice Age, not due cannot be closely dated. directly to glaciers but to the huge Most Palaeolithic sites north volume of meltwater released as each of Belhus were reached by Ice Age came to an end. This water glaciers in one or more Ice has carried vast quantites of gravel Ages, and so were buried with it, carving new channels, cutting off meanders and choking them with gravel, as happened at Belhus. Sequence of geological layers The route of the Thames during the Palaeolithic period ©Oxford Archaeology The river has also cut down each time, removing part or all of the sediments The river however continued to filling the earlier ones. This has meant meander north of its present line, and that tracing the course of each phase one of the largest of these meanders of the river is not straightforward, was the ‘Ockendon-Purfleet Loop’, and dating these channels when whose line is still partly visible as the exposed is all-important. The channel Mar Dyke, and which was cut by the at Belhus is too old for radiocarbon M25 at Belhus just north of Junction 30. dating, but the sediments are being Flint flake Modern archaeological excavations These have shown that the tools use a wide array of materials and were deposited during a warm phase, analyses to help recreate the when the climate was probably surroundings of these early humans. similar to, or slightly warmer, than The focus of the recent investigations that today. was therefore upon dark horizons of preserved organic remains, which This warm phase lasted for about contained wood, seeds and leaves, 30,000 years, but geologically this pollen, insects, molluscs, bones and was just a blip in the Ice Ages that ostracods (small seed-shrimps). occurred before and afterwards. Artist’s reconstruction of a Palaeolithic hunting scene 300,000 years ago ©Oxford Archaeology Later visits to this site are shown by N Post-glacial human flints such as a fine barbed-and-tanged Passingford Flood arrowhead dating from the early Bronze Alleviation Area activity Age (2500 - 1600 BC), which suggests Burnt flint spread the hunting of animals drinking at the All of the remaining archaeology along river. the M25 belongs to the last 10,000 years, after the end of the most recent Ice Age, so the climate has been Four poster M25 temperate throughout. Burial under barrows was common for the most important people in society For much of this time the land has at this time, but this type of burial had been forested, so that rivers were the largely died out by the Middle Bronze easiest means of getting about, and as Age (1600-1200 BC). At Passingford, a result much activity occurred along however, it was then that a circular ring rivers. The Thames was the main River Roding ditch was dug (radiocarbon date 1434- east-west artery, but the tributaries that 1299 BC). At this time the floodplain drain into it from the north were also was dry, and had probably been very important for the communities cleared for grazing. There may have living around them. The River Roding, Flint arrowhead been a mound inside the ditch created crossed by the M25, is one of these. from the spoil, but if so, ploughing had removed this long ago. At Passingford Bridge, Early Neolithic people camped out on the Ring ditch floodplain next to the river, leaving a Burnt flint features scatter of struck flints behind. This happened 0 100 m between 4000 and Middle Bronze Age 1:2000 3300 BC. Similar but Early-Middle Iron Age Unphased smaller scatters of flint Posthole avenue Gravel terrace came from other sites. Four-poster Top to bottom: Mesolithic blade, Neolithic arrowhead Four poster 0 20 m and micro-toothed tool from Passingford Bridge Four poster 1:500 sometimes within a ring ditch, At Passingford Bridge, a mound of None of the Bronze Age sites had Later Bronze Age at sometimes unenclosed.