Location

The fieldwork area designated as "SE Odney" is to the east of Cookham Village cross road, a distance of 638m at 105 deg. east (Fig 1). The designated site has an area of 22.12 acres, 8.95 hectares. The survey for convenience of site layout and CAD is aligned west/east with the base line at 96.49 deg east of grid north. The two main survey points (GCP) are at. GCP A NG90436:85123 and GCP B NG90192:85170 (Fig 2). The site is between the Thames, Lullybrook, Mill Lane and Formosa House. To the south the other side of Mill Lane is Whiteplace an area with much recorded on the SMR as having a quantity of archaeology, mainly iron age but also from other periods. Whiteplace has been subject in the past to Fieldwalking which unfortunately was not well recorded. Attempts are being made to reanalyse some of this data so as to be able to propose a targeted properly organised and recorded Fieldwalk.

Site

The site is now part of the John Lewis recreation centre. The area is thought to have been part of the Formosa Estate being separate from the rest of the current estate. It is now used as pasture and recreation with a few trees on a line that may be the remains of a hedge. It is not thought to have been ploughed since forming part of Formosa in the 18c. It is probable that the site was landscaped during its time as part of Formosa and later by John Lewis as a sports area. These works need further investigation as they confuse any archaeology. Two air photographs [Fairy Air Survey] have the site is outlined in red (Fig 3) with apparent crop mark features on (Fig 4), in, green possibly recent sports area and yellow suggestion of bank and ditch.

Objective

There has been much speculation regarding Cookham as to Roman Road Thames crossings, Saxon Minster, Saxon Hidage Fort and similar but no archaeological evidence. It has been proposed that the Saxon Fort of Sceaftsege was on Sashes Island (Gelling/Brooks) due to the similarity of name. More recent consideration of the history of the name Sashes confirms that both names probably refer to the same location. It was however realised that the manor of Sashes covered a much larger area than just the island. This area would have covered SE Odney and Formosa and may well have included adjacent areas. The hypothesis is that the Fort of Sceaftsege is most probably somewhere in the area of the old Sashes Manor. (Further document research is being carried out). Of all 32 Forts on the Burghal Hidage Document 30 have been found and investigated [Defence of Wessex, Hill/Rumble]. The Hidage document, which is suggested to be an inventory, is very consistent allowing certain conclusions to be drawn, manly that the Forts were built to a consistent pattern. Sceaftsege would have been a subsidiary Fort of 1000 hides between the major forts of Wallingford and Southwark. Cricklade about 1400 hides the other side of Wallingford occupies a similar position in the pattern and terrain to Scaftesege.

The Hidage Fort of Cricklade has been extensively investigated [Haslam/Radford/Wainright] who suggest that the Fort was improved and developed in a number of phases. The first of these phases thought to be 879<889 and for historic reasons may be of the same period as Sceaftsege a section of this phase is shown (Fig 5 [Haslem]). So as to give some idea of size relating to Cookham a 1000 hide Fort is plotted on (Fig 6), this is not to imply any relevance to any particular position. This plot was on the basis of a configuration as Cricklade with the size as the formula in the Hidage document as expressed in the [Defence of Wessex, Rumble, pg. 34 & 70] The objective therefore was to see if there was any earthworks or terrain evidence, within the suggested area of Sashes Manor that might suggest the location of the Fort.

Archaeological Background

No previous fieldwork has been carried out on the area of SE Odney and we are grateful to the management of John Lewis for allowing limited access. It had been suggested that a Roman Road from Verulamium to Silchester crossed the Thames at Sashes, also the suggestion based on place name for the Hidage Fort to be on Sashes. Investigation and excavation was carried out by [Hill/Robinson, Manchester University, unpublished report] in 1996 (Fig 7). This revealed a few Neolithic worked flints but no evidence of Roman Road or Fort. The Environment Agency carried out engineering investigations alongside the lock cut in 2002 [unpublished report]. The Env. Agency archaeologist obtained finds from these trenches, mainly TP2 what appeared to be burnt clay. When dated by a laboratory this proved to be Bronze Age.

Fieldwork

The area was walked to establish any features of interest but the only one of note was a curving feature on SE Odney. This was investigated using terrain survey, resistivity and auger, the following are the results of this investigation.

Terrain Survey

The area was surveyed using GTS and the contours plotted (Fig 8). The outline of the apparent feature was also plotted, shown red.

Magnetometer

The Environment Agency carried out a Magnetometer Survey against one side of the site. Position shown (Fig 9) with a bitmap of the plot (Fig 10). The Env. Agency Archaeologist advised that no archaeology was apparent and that the nature of the data was indicative of mixed fill.

Resistivity

A number of strip Resistivity surveys were carried out across the apparent feature, these are shown (Fig 11). The data was converted to "Surfer" and 3d models were produced (Fig 12) with one example (Fig 13).

Auger

A line of auger bores were taken across the apparent feature (Fig 14) with the bore log (Fig 15) and section (Fig 16).

Preliminary Comments

The curved feature of possibly a bank and ditch appears on the air photograph, terrain survey and resistivity, there can be no doubt as to its existence but what it may be is not clear. Both auger and resistivity show what appears to be alluvium to the south of the feature and what is probably mixed fill to the north. It is probable that this mixed fill is the result of landscaping. The intriguing question is whether the feature is simply the edge of the mixed fill or this fill was placed up against a previous and perhaps much older feature. One aspect that may give a clue is the ditch showing on the resistivity which is south of the feature and clear of the fill. Of interest, if (Fig 5) section of Cricklade is compared with (Fig 13) 3d resistivity model, there are some similarities but this may only be coincidence.