Test Pit 11:         Aylesbury Road

3rd August 2013

By Martin Cuthbert

Test Pit 11 was located just south of Aylesbury Road.

The main road through Wing is aligned North-South but eventually this changed as traffic increased from Aylesbury to Leighton Buzzard perhaps in the medieval period. Geophysics and fieldwalking  identified a focus of Roman settlement activity behind the Aylesbury Road close to the Mentmore Road gradually petering out further west. This test pit was excavated to see if the Roman settlement activity did continue further west.

First of all WOW what a view from the garden…stunning!! The rolling Chiltern hills and Mentmore towers peaking through the trees. The weather was again a bit variable but with the amazing views you could see it coming.

The test pit was very similar to Test Pit 2, also situated on Aylesbury Road. We found very little modern finds, hardly an blue and white china or post medieval pottery. However we did find a small assemblage of pottery sherds that were medieval in date, easily identifiable by the green glaze. A few of the sherds may have also been Roman in date.

The limited assemblage of pottery was obtained from the ploughsoil (037) and subsoil (039) of TP11.  The assemblage comprised fifteen sherds of medieval pottery dating to 1050-1600, and a very small abraded sherd of 4^th century Roman pottery.

Two flint flakes of the prehistoric period were retrieved from the subsoil (039).

The assemblage from TP 11 suggests activity may have been occurring within the vicinity during the Roman period and again in the later medieval period.  However, the abraded condition of the pottery sherds suggests they may have been moved from their original place of deposition by plough action, or they may have been incorporated into the manuring of the villages surrounding fields.

A huge thank you to all our volunteers, Paul from LBDAHS, Paul Blinkhorn our pottery specialist and of course Lance for allowing us to dig a hole in his garden.