Archaeological Work in Oxford, 2021

Summary

The year saw a significant number of small-scale excavations take place as developments put on hold because of Covid were brought forward. A number of these involved targeted excavation of important medieval assets located within the historic core of the city, including the second site of the Blackfriars, Oseney Abbey, the Castle bailey ditch, the town ditch and medieval Shidyerd Street. A number of these sites involved the recovery of material that has been subject to scientific dating that may have significant implications in terms of interpretation, therefore the short summaries provided below are necessarily provisional. To the north of the city, prehistoric and Civil War remains were investigated by projects related to the upgrading of university and college facilities. Alongside these targeted excavations, the year saw a moderate amount of evaluation work around the periphery of the city relating to infill housing developments, revealing previously unknown Roman sites in Iffley and Cowley.

SELECTED PROJECTS

Rhodes House, South Parks Road

Between December 2020 and October 2021 a series of investigations were undertaken at Rhodes House by MOLA. Test pits were excavated adjacent to the line of the extant Civil War rampart and a watching brief was undertaken during the demolition of the frontage buildings. In the summer and autumn phased excavations were undertaken prior to the construction of a new sunken accommodation block and garden pavilion building. The investigations to the east of Rhodes House revealed a series of linear features that, subject to scientific dating, may prove to be a mixture of paleo-channels in the gravel terrace and later post-medieval garden features. A substantial seventeenth-century ditch was identified to the east of Rhodes House, which was further investigated to the west of the building, where an ephemeral gully and rectangular post pad slot arrangement ran parallel to the north. The ditch and potential wooden outwork are likely to be part of the inner line of the Royalist Civil War defences. A small area of the site also contained likely drip gullies and pits of Iron Age date.

Christ Church Archive Building

In January Keevill Heritage Ltd undertook historic building recording and a watching brief during works to upgrade the Christ Church archive building (formerly the college brewhouse), a stone-built structure of early fifteenth-century date.