An archaeologist was present for the excavation of a new boundary wall foundation trench. The excavations for the ground beams had been completed before the archaeologist was next in attendance, although these did appear to be in made-up ground and were above the earliest archaeological horizon. The stone plinth/foundation walls to the barn had been mostly removed prior to archaeological attendance at the site, although the partial remains of the southern plinth/foundation-wall were still present. The archaeologist was in attendance for a continuous watching brief of the ground reductions for the basement down to the top of the natural geological horizon. The depth of the excavations and the confinement of the space made the spoil management for the excavations difficult. An initial tendency by the machine operative to undercut the unexcavated ground whilst removing standing spoil lead to the truncation of the westerly extent of three ditches. The excavations during the ground reductions at 14b Chearsley Road, Long Crendon, identified a site where the ground had been substantially made up in places. These deposit were created in order to create a terrace against the steep slope downwards from Chearsley Road towards the south-east of the site where it drops in excess of 1.5m from the road. This made ground was evident on the south-west exterior of the barn where made-ground rubble deposits were observed built up against a modern retaining wall. During the ground reductions it was evident that a later concrete floor had been laid in the interior of the barn above a levelling deposit. These deposits had buried topsoil deposits that were internal to the barn and this had raised the level of the barn interior. Aside the concrete floor the only remains to the barn observed during the excavations were the foundations of the southern barn plinth, as all other foundations had been removed during demolition. These foundations were of roughly hewn limestone but occasional fragments of brick were also present, though it was not certain if these were elements of modern insertion as noted in the previous building recording (Asset Heritage Consulting Ltd 2018) or if they were intrusive from demolition. The earliest features identified were three parallel ditches orientated north-east to south-west. These were identified at approximately 1.5m to 1.9m below the current ground level at the edge of the site where it meets Chearsley Road. The ditches were orientated so that they were parallel to the line of the road, which is also the line of a minor Roman road, and their orientation may have been influenced by the presence of the road. However, no dating evidence was recovered from these ditches and so there was no evidence to link the ditches to the Roman period. The full extent of the ditches towards the south-west was not observed as they had been truncated during supposed spoil removal. The features had though not been identified during more satisfactory excavations towards the far south-west and so were not considered to have continued beyond the south-west limit of excavation. Finds were extremely rare from the site and the only notable item recovered was a worked bone object identified as a possible pin beater or thread picker. This had been recovered from deep within a deep buried topsoil deposit interior to the barn. This deposit was undifferentiated, lacking in any stratigraphy and other datable material. No other finds or features of note were recovered from the site.
G Davis (Sat,) studied this question.