Archaeological Watching Brief at Land Adjacent to Sunnymeade, Station Road, Marsh Gibbon, Buckinghamshire

The archeaological evaluation stage involved the mechanical excavation of two trenches excavated across the proposed site of the development. Trench 1 was 9.5m long and Trench 2 was to be 8m long but was shortened to 6m in length due to the presence of services. Both trenches were 1.65m wide. Excavation of the trenches was by a 5t excavator using a ditching bucket. Mechanical excavation was to be taken down to the top of "natural" deposits or any higher archaeological horizon. Subsequently, an archaeologist maintained a presence on site for the full course of any excavation relating to the new build that would potentially disturb or destroy archaeological remains. In particular this focused on the excavation of the footing trenches where they were considered to impact on archaeological layers. The foundation trenches were approximately 1.2m deep throughout the site and approximately 0.6m wide. Trench 2 was devoid of any archaeological features and was heavily truncated by three modern service trenches. Trench 1 contained a ditch 1/06 that was orientated east - west and probably represents a former boundary to the graveyard of St Mary's Church located directly south of the development site and contained a single abraded sherd of pottery dated to 1200 - 1600 and a fragment of floor tile dated to the 13th - 14th centuries. However these could be residual as restoration and rebuilding of the church was undertaken during the 18th and 19th centuries and the churchyard is believed to have been raised in height during the 19th century. Trench 1 also contained rectangular stone lined pit 1/04 and the north-western corner of a foundation wall 1/05 that abutted the north-western extent of the stone lined pit. The lower fill (1/08) of the stone lined pit contained pottery dating to the Late Post- Medieval. These two features probably relate to the series of various buildings shown on various old maps of the Late Post-Medieval period. Due to the location of the footing trenches over the ditch fills, and the nature of the excavation, it was difficult to identify ditches in plan and they were largely revealed in section. Two large ditches were seen to be related to the earliest activity of the site. Ditch 05 would correspond to the ditch found in the archaeological evaluation labelled as 1/06. No archaeological material was associated with this feature during the watching brief, although a sherd of pottery dated to 1200-1600 and fragment of floor tile dated to the 13th-14th centuries was recovered from the ditch fill during the archaeological evaluation. In the report for this evaluation the ditch was considered to be an earlier boundary ditch of the church located south of the site. During the watching brief another earlier ditch 19 was found which was cut by ditch 05 and is identified as possibly a slightly earlier church boundary ditch as it respects a similar alignment as to that of ditch 05 which in turn later cuts through ditch 19. The old garage truncates a large part of the site, and alongside some evidence of tree rooting which was seen at the north-east corner of the garage, may be the reason why a stone-lined pit 1/04 and an associated wall 1/05 was not seen to continue west of the evaluation trench 1. Two different walls were identified towards the east of the site which can be identified as relating to the later post-medieval buildings which can be seen in maps dating to 1819 and onwards. The two walls were identified in different footing trenches and show no physical relationship. Their different construction methods and sizes suggest that they are part of separate buildings and separate building phases. It is possible that the larger wall 16 found further north can be identified with a larger and more significant building orientated north-south which can be seen on the parish plans dating to 1819 and 1846.