CBA SMA\SMA 1983.PDF - Council for British Archaeology

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survival. The most comprehensive record was obtained from tenements
5 and 6 on the west of the site. Each had a stone building,
measuring 8.25 x 5m, with a frontage on to Castle Lane and foundation
walls intact on three sides. Their internal features differed; the
building in tenement 6 was an industrial unit, while that in tenement 5
served a more domestic purpose. To the rear of these buildings, each
of these tenements had yards with rubbish pits, short lengths of
walling and possible industrial features, while a garden area was
located at the back of the most thoroughly examined tenement. The
stone buildings, which contained an abundance of 12th and 13th century
pottery, were preceded by a phase of construction in timber, to which
a firm date has not yet been assigned.
To the east, tenements 3 and 4 each contained an unusually wellpreserved
drystone cellar cut into the natural limestone. One measured
6.2 x 3.9 x 1.1m and the other 4.4 x 3.2 x 1.65m. Both cellars had sets
of steps descending into them and both had been remodelled during their
period of use. Once they were no longer in use, they were filled with
refuse from the tenements, including 12th and 13th century pottery and
a large number of discarded iron objects. Neither cellar seems to have
supported an overlying building, so they should be regarded as freestanding
structures. A documentary reference alludes to the existence
of wool storage buildings in a neighbouring part of Brackley at this
time. It is possible that the excavated structures are also woolsheds,
for the town played an important part in the wool trade in the 13th and
14th centuries.
Little else survived in the way of major structural evidence in
tenements 3 and 4, save for occasional suggestive stone alignments and
a number of pits of varying size. These were generally of industrial
origin but were subsequently filled with refuse. A large quarry pit
was located between the two cellars.
Further east, in tenements 1 and 2, even less survived of the
medieval stratification but clear boundary alignments could be defined
and several medieval pits were excavated.
Across tenements 1 to 4, the bare outlines of mid to late 1st
millennium BC occupation, represented by shallow ditches, gullies and
pits with associated Iron Age pottery, were revealed. Contrary to
observations made in the last edition of the Newsletter, there seems
to be no reason to suppose that the site was occupied during the
Saxon
Angloperiod.
A continuing problem was the relation of the documented and
excavated landholdings to the nearby castle and its outworks. There
is little reliable evidence for the occupation of the castle but the
13th century documents imply its abandonment some years earlier. At
the western edge of the site, two deep ditches were located. One of
these was flat-bottomed and seems to have been one of the castle
fishponds, fed via a tributary of the Great Ouse. It was no longer in
use by the time of the major phase of settlement neXt to Castle
The
Lane.
other excavated ditch was the castle moat, sealed by cobbles which
continue the course of Castle Lane. The castle gateway remained
elusive but it is possible that further work between Castle Hill and
Castle Lane will be practicable before construction of the Brackley
bypass. An earthwork survey of Brackley Castle has been completed by
Glenn Foard.