Rural development and decline in a medieval manor during the eleventh to fourteenth centuries: new insights from excavations at Graven Hill, Oxfordshire
Keywords:
medieval, settlement, Graven Hill, Oxfordshire, England, excavationAbstract
The discovery and excavation of a medieval rural settlement at Graven Hill has enriched our understanding of the history of the Oxfordshire landscape. A new farmstead was established in the late eleventh century and developed in the thirteenth century with a series of masonry buildings apparently arranged around a central courtyard, linked via a road to the deserted medieval village at Wretchwick. The site is significant for its well-preserved structural foundations and a considerable number of artefacts, including one of the largest medieval pottery assemblages known from rural Oxfordshire. The farmstead was abandoned around the same time as the village in the mid-fourteenth century, perhaps as a result of the Black Death. The land was subsequently used for agriculture until the development of MoD Bicester in the 1940s.
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