Time Team - Radcot, Oxfordshire - Archaeological Evaluation and Assessment of Results

Wessex Archaeology

A small evaluation trench was subsequently dug across part of the keep by John Blair of Oxford University. The evaluation by Time Team added to the information gathered previously by revealing the north-eastern corner of the keep and also the supporting pier for the first floor of the castle within the interior. The remains of the heavily robbed gatehouse and main access road into the castle complex and the northern moat were identified, as well as a heavily robbed structure interpreted as a chapel. The remains of a medieval ancillary building were also revealed. These structures post-dated deposits containing 11th/12th century pottery, consistent with an early post-conquest construction date, which could link it with Hugh of Buckland, the local major landowner around the turn of the 12th century. Possible evidence of the subsequent strengthening of the keep was observed, perhaps associated with Matilda's fortification of the castle during the Anarchy Period of the mid 12th century.

The abandonment of the castle complex was dated to the late 13th/early 14th century, and there was a clear hiatus in the pottery sequence from that date until the 16th century, which fits with the later occupation of the Site by the de Besilles family.

In the mid 17th century a ‘minor Royalist fort’ was constructed that involved the refortification of the eastern half of the medieval moated complex by the excavation of a large ditch which split the moated site in two. The 17th century defensive ditch was shown to surround an earthen bastion for the placing of cannon. Several late Romano-British ditches, possibly field boundaries, were also identified, as well as a low level of residual later prehistoric material, suggesting activity on or close to the Site.

The route of the medieval road from Faringdon to Witney, which apparently ran through the site, was also investigated, but no trace of the road was found. The evaluation has contributed useful evidence that confirms and augments our knowledge of the construction, layout and date range of the castle complex at Radcot, and also of the Civil War earthworks on the same site.