Untitled - Council for British Archaeology

OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUHCIL DEPARTMENT OF MUSEUM SERVICES
FIELD SECTION -
John M. Steane and James Bond
SITES AND MONUMENTS RECORD
New material continues to be collected within the County Sites and
Monuments Record, which now includes information on some 12,360 archaeological
sites and buildings in Oxfordshire.
The purchase of a collection of vertical air photographs of the
southern part of. South Oxfordshire District, taken by Fairey Surveys Ltd.
during April-May 1971 and printed at a scale of 1:10,000, has meant
that at last Vertical coverage of the whole county is now available
within the Record, for some areas of more than one date.
Other significant acquisitions to the Record have included a
series of plans of ancient Oxfordshire bridges received from the
County Surveyor's Department. The County Record Office have also
kindly deposited xerox copies of Mrs. Davenport's sketches of
Oxfordshire bridges in the 19th century.
Richard Hingley has continued to work through the 1961 and 1969
vertical air photograph cover for the Oxfordshire Archaeological Unit, and
has identified and indexed approximately 150 previously unrecorded
sites, including a significant number on the oolitic limestone uplands
which have previously appeared relatively barren for crop-marks. A
fair proportion of the new sites appear to be of Iron Age date, and
include several banjo-type enclosures.-
Elizabeth Leggatt has continued to comb systematically through
published and other sources for the City of Oxford and is processing
this-material into the Record. A valuable aid has been the loan of
the Oxfordshire Archaeological Unit's site notebooks by Brian Durham.
A study of Langdon's map of 1605 (Corpus Christi Coll., Oxford) showing
the Hockmore Street and St. Bartholomew's areas of Cowley has been
carried out. It was possible to relate the 1605 field and village plan
to the present layout, and to appreciate the more gradual effect on the
landscape by piecemeal development compared with.the drastic destruction
caused by the building of shopping precincts and industrial complexes.
A recent acquisition to the Record has highlighted the degree of
change in Oxford since the First World War. A School of Military
Aeronautics for officers of the Royal Flying Corps was established at
the University Museum between 1916-1919, and a most interesting collection
of jra photographs dating from this period has been donated to ,the Record.
This comprises some 44 views of Oxford, mainly vertical, which have.been
identified with the aid of the 1919 revision of the Ordnance Survey.
1:10,560.
Li-sa Brown is currently working through the Sites and Monuments
Record in order to abstract an index of excavations on behalf of the
National Monuments Record.
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