Excavating Berkshire

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 386

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I have a soft spot for Berkshire: it is the county of my birth, and I spent much time there as a child. But, like many people, I would not be able to say I know either it, or its archaeology, well. Nor has history treated the county kindly when it comes to archaeological riches – the 1974 reorganisation of local government saw the Vale of the White Horse and its splendid prehistoric sites move into Oxfordshire, along with historic Abingdon, the former county town – see my column in CA 366 (September 2020). Meanwhile, the main university with archaeological interests in the area, Reading, has long conducted fieldwork locally at Silchester, just across the border in Hampshire – see my column in CA 337 (April 2018). Even the county’s archaeological administration is complicated: there is Berkshire Archaeology for the east of the county, and West Berkshire Council for, well, the west. Thankfully, there is the stalwart county archaeological society, founded in 1871 and still going strong, with two suitably distinguished locals in charge: HM The Queen as Patron and Professor Michael Fulford as President. The society celebrated its 150th anniversary under muted – socially distanced – circumstances in 2021: see CA 382 (January 2022) for photos (and, yes, there was cake, but no one was ambushed by it!).

Prehistoric peoples

Appropriately, given the introduction above, the first significant mention of the county in the magazine was in CA 54 (January 1976), when students from the University of Reading excavated a site of mixed Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman date at Aldermaston, led by Richard Bradley and Michael Fulford, at that time both young staff members, but who went on to distinguished careers. Bar the honourable mention of Reading Abbey (more on this below), news from the county then went quiet for over a quarter of a century, its next significant mention in the magazine coming in CA 195 (December 2004). At this time, aggregates-extraction was making a marked impact on the archaeology of the county, and the much-missed Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (an environmental levy on such extraction that was a major source of support for archaeological and environmental projects between 2002 and 2011) facilitated fieldwork by Cotswold Archaeology at Hartshill Quarry near Upper Bucklebury, halfway between Reading and Newbury. This fieldwork surveyed the remains of an iron-ore smelting facility from the 10th century BC (yes, you read that correctly), making it one of the oldest known ironworking sites in north-west Europe.

Current Archaeology has also flown Berkshire’s flag for some even older prehistoric sites over the years, including a Neolithic village discovered at Kingsmead Quarry near Horton (near the junction of the M4 and M25) in CA 292 (July 2014), and a Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Datchet (even closer to the southern edge of the M4) in CA 351 (June 2019). The former revealed evidence of four (possibly five) early Neolithic houses of c.3800-3600 BC date on a site excavated by Wessex Archaeology. The latter provided expanded evidence for the long-term occupation of the river terraces of this area, spanning the Mesolithic to modern day, with particularly rich Neolithic evidence from c.5,500 years ago. Fieldwork at the latter – another quarry site – saw the bulk of the enclosure’s circuit and interior excavated by Wessex Archaeology, producing a wealth of finds connected to some of the earliest farming communities of Britain.

Prisons and palaces

The magazine’s coverage of Berkshire’s Roman history sets the tone for the medieval and modern eras: what is mentioned is small in quantity but big in quality. One Roman site above all others stands tall: that of the unappealingly named ‘Mud Hole’ villa in the village of Boxford, to the north-west of Newbury, which first appeared in CA 333 (December 2017), with follow-up features in CA 357 (December 2019) and CA 371 (February 2021). Until the recent discovery of the mosaic in Rutland that featured on the cover of CA 383 (February 2022), the one found at Boxford was fairly described as ‘the most exciting mosaic discovery in Britain in the last 50 years’. It depicts scenes from the life of ‘monster slayer’ Bellerophon as well as other mythological figures such as Hercules. But the mosaic was merely the latest find in a catalogue of discoveries on the site, a great, long-running piece of teamwork in the finest traditions of British archaeology, fruitfully bringing together the ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ communities (I use these terms with caution, implying no slight to anyone involved) to understand the wider Roman landscape of an area rich in remains from this period, among many others.