As detailed in the WSI the footprint of the foundations were stripped of overburden using a tracked mechanical excavator fitted with a toothless bucket, operating under the archaeological supervision of a suitably qualified and experienced archaeologist. Excavations proceeded in a manner which allowed the monitoring archaeologist to identify archaeological features. The north-east section of the building footprint will be impacted by the barn construction. This half of the footprint was stripped mechanically using a toothless ditching bucket. The south-west section of the barn footprint will be built up and thus have no archaeological impact. Once archaeological features were revealed, they were cleaned by hand and recorded in plan before being excavated and recorded at an appropriate level. Archaeological features or other remains were recorded by written, drawn and photographic record to the standards outlined in the WSI. Such recording works took place in consultation with the contractor so as not to hold up the pace of works, although the recording of some features required some stoppage time of up to 2 hours. The general methodology for excavations and sampling is outlined in Appendix A of the WSI Oxford Archaeology (OA) was commissioned by Addyman Archaeology, on behalf of Bletchingdon Park Estate, to undertake a watching brief at the site of a proposed new farm building for the storage of hay at New Barn Farm, Kirtlington, to the south of Lince Lane. The north-east section of the building footprint will be impacted by the barn construction. This half of the footprint was stripped mechanically in two stages using a toothless ditching bucket. The south-west section of the barn footprint will be built up and thus have no archaeological impact. No evidence was found that could shed light on Roman or medieval settlements found previously in the vicinity, which are predominantly focussed within Kirtlington village, centred about 300m to the northeast of the site. No significant archaeological features or deposits were identified within the affected part of the new barn footprint. The small number of features identified were very faint and/or irregular and are probably cultivation furrows and/or tree throws rather than archaeological features. These features are poorly dated but most likely to be of post-medieval or modern date. A thin made ground layer may have been laid to infill an area of formerly boggy ground. The only finds recovered were two sherds of early post-medieval red earthenware, probably dating from the late 15th-17th century, which were recovered from a pit or tree-throw sealed beneath the made ground layer
Tamsin Jones (Mon,) studied this question.