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Fieldnotes by Catalanman

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Bulstrode Camp (Hillfort)

Another limited excavation of Bulstrode Camp took place in 1969. It was motivated less by academic curiosity than by Eton Rural District Council's need to install a sewer. The operations were observed by S.A. Moorhouse of the Ancient Monuments Department, Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, and by Gerrards Cross and Chalfont St. Peter Local History Society. The excavators were able to record the stratification of the bank and, despite being hampered by water, managed to reach the floor of a ditch, unlike their 1924 predecessors. They also found two post-holes in the interior and evidence of a previously undiscovered inner ditch, but no objects or unusual features were uncovered. The excavators concluded, as Fox and Clarke had done in 1924, that the Camp was "rather a camp of refuge for intermittent occupation and not a permanent settlement" (Records of Bucks, Vol. 18 p. 324).

A geophysical survey between March and November 2002 detected "a number of possible prehistoric anomalies", mostly around the margins in the northern part of the site. Since these anomalies are circular and between 9 and 16 metres across it is possible that they are round houses. The survey also found evidence of what might be a 60 by 15 metre Neolithic or Bronze Age long barrow (John Gover - Bulstrode 'Iron Age' Camp Gerrards Cross: A Site of Many Periods, in Journal of Chess Valley Archaeological & Historical Society, 2003).

For more on the Camp and these excavations, go to http://www.gerrardscross.gov.uk/gx/bulstrode.htm
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