CROFT AMBREY, AYMESTREY ... - English Heritage

here and unearthed a complex series of deposits. Post holes and other features occurred
up to 7m to the rear of the bank, mostly interpreted as associated with a 'guard room'
structure, but how far such features may have continued into the interior is not clear.
Bowden (2006) has recently challenged the view that 'guard chambers' need have a
military function and those reservations are relevant here. The features could, for
example, have formed a continuous arrangement with the four post structures
encountered further west that appeared to be arranged in rows.
The present survey indicates that the northernmost (and perhaps the southern) side of
the entrance passage was constructed from a natural rock outcrop. Indeed, the course of
the enclosure boundary may have been conditioned by a desire to incorporate this and
other outcrops into the circuit (e.g. Figs 9 and 12). Here the outcrop extends for 80m
alongside the escarpment and the over-elaborate funnelled hollow way leading to this
entrance runs parallel to it and, as Stanford recognised, has been cut into and 'terraced
quite deeply into the bedrock' (ibid, 69). There was no need to do this and an entrance
could have been made more easily elsewhere, but it appears to comprise an important
component of what might be described as a formal 'façade', an ostentatious construction,
awe inspiring in order to encourage a desire for entry, yet designed to conceal the nature
of what lay within. It follows, however, that the rock cut hollow-way extended as far west
as the entrance, and was originally cut to a similar levels as a consistent feature right
through the outcrop. Stanford's section drawings of Site K make it clear that the natural
limestone in the gateway has been cut into the rock to a depth of 1.5m, closer to the
present ground surface of the hollow way as well as to the interior of the enclosure. If this
was contemporary with the cutting of the track way, it implies that the hollow way funnel
was integral to an early, if not the earliest, build. Currently, there is a mounding between
the north and south sides of the 'gateway' reaching 1m in height as though the entrance
was blocked. The 1.5m depth of sediments that built up within the gateway incorporated
a sequence of eight road metal deposits confined to the corridor between the bank
terminals. This is curious as the original limestone surface might be considered hard
enough for most traffic, but instead of creating a hollowed surface it has been increasingly
raised with new metalling just at this point. It may be, of course, that the intensity of traffic
at the gateway resulted in a need for constant repair, but there is no evidence for ruts
and the increasing mounding between the bank terminals would be exceedingly difficult
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