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Airport Gate Dig |
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This is a summary of the archaeological investigation undertaken by the Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS) on the site of the Airport Gate warehouse development, Bath Road, Harmondsworth on behalf of Allied Commercial Exporters Ltd.
The
Airport Gate site is situated on the northern side of Heathrow Airport, immediately to the
north of the Bath Road. It is bounded to the east by houses which front onto Blunts Avenue
and by a recreation ground, to the north by open fields and to the west by industrial
buildings.
Three
distinct phases of human activity were recorded on the site. The earliest of which was a
system of Middle Bronze Age field boundaries. One of these ditches consisted of at least
two phases of construction. The ditch fills contained a quantity of material such as
pottery, flint, burnt flint and charcoal which would suggest that there had been Middle
Bronze Age occupation in the immediate vicinity. The majority of the pottery has been
identified as of Deverel Rimbury type and includes the base of a large vessel as well as
decorated rim fragments.
Three
isolated pits containing charcoal, bone and burnt flint were also recorded. The fills from
these pits were also found to contain fragments of Deverel Rimbury pottery. Together the
burnt flint and charcoal content of the pits suggest that they may be refuse or cooking
pits. Flint blades and flakes were also recovered form these pits and they have been dated
to the later Prehistoric period. Analysis of the soil sample from the most southerly pit
has found two small fragments of human bone. The bone was whitish blue in colour and this
shows that it had been heated to over 600° C for a long time
which suggests this pit contained a cremation.
Many
of the features are at present undated. This includes the most striking feature on the
site which was a large rectangular enclosure, open at the western end and associated with
a droveway. The enclosure had several phases of recutting of the ditches and was divided
down the centre by a shallow gully. The enclosure had what appeared to be a form of
gateway at the western end leading into the northern half of the enclosure. The presence
of the central gully and the entranceway strongly suggests that there were two different
activities taking place within the one enclosure.
The
droveway to the south of the enclosure was formed by the southern side of the enclosure
and a parallel ditch that extended beyond the limit of excavation to the west.
The
droveway ditch was found to be very shallow and appeared to be truncated but this may have
been how the ditch was originally designed with an entrance leading into a larger field or
paddock to the south.
The
droveway was blocked by a short section of ditch that had postholes cut into its base.
This was constructed in the final phase of use of the enclosure and droveway. It would
have prevented livestock entering or leaving the area directly to the east of the
enclosure.
The
enclosure, droveway and a shorter ditch at the very northern end of the site, were all
found to be on a northwest - southeast alignment. This is approximately a 45° realignment from the Middle Bronze Age field system. These
features, though at the moment undated, are probably Late Bronze Age or Iron Age in date.
The
environmental samples taken from the fills of undated pits and ditches contain a quantity
of charcoal from which radio carbon dates may be obtained. The environmental samples that
have been taken from the enclosure have revealed the presence of a large number and range
of cereal grains such as wheat, barley, oat, as well as legumes and weed seeds including
dock and grasses.
A
line of postholes that ran approximately NW - SE to the north of the enclosure are also
undated. These postholes may simply form a fence line but equally they may be associated
with other postholes in the vicinity and form a fairly large structure such as a hall or
barn. One of these undated postholes has been found to contain a rich assemblage of over
200 grains and the only chaff from the site.
The
excavation revealed other pits in association with the three that had already been located
during the evaluation. A large elongated pit was also found to contain a fragment of loom
weight. This pit had almost vertical sides and was associated with a number of postholes
dug around it. The base of the pit was very irregular with numerous small indentations
that appear to be stakeholes. This feature, although not a typical example, has been
interpreted as a sunken featured building(SFB). This form of structure was common though
out the Anglo-Saxon period and are usually found to be ancillary buildings such as weaving
and storage sheds.
All
the Saxon features contained charcoal in sufficient quantity to suggest occupation in the
immediate vicinity. The environmental analysis has shown that seeds from cereal plants,
beans and weed seeds were present although the quantities suggest that the building was
not connected with processing or storage of arable crops.
The
presence of the loomweight fragment from the SFB and the fragment from the neighbouring
pit suggests that the building was a weaving shed. SFBs are sometimes found in conjunction
with Saxon halls which are long, rectangular post-built dwellings.
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