Highways Agency

• Introduction and description of the bypass
• The archaelogical story
• Introduction
• Who's who
• Digging up the past at aston clinton
• Road and canal run in harmony
• Working with the community
• Caring for the environment
• Facts and figures

A41 Aston Clinton Bypass

Introduction and Description of the Bypass

The bypass route is a 6.3km long dual two-lane road passing to the north of Aston Clinton between Woodlands Roundabout in the west and Tring Hill roundabout in the east. The project includes bridges carrying side roads over the bypass and a local diversion of the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal.

The A41 Aston Clinton bypass posed some challenging archaeological problems and provided some fascinating insights into this area's past. The purpose here is to explain briefly some of the measures taken to reduce the effects of the scheme on archaeology.

The modern landscape shows traces of ancient road lines and field boundaries. Two clearly ancient roads are the 'holloway' running parallel to the scheme at Drayton Beauchamp and Roman road known as Akeman Street. The bypass dissects the important cross-country routes of the Upper and Lower Icknield Way which utilise the scarp of the Chilterns as a natural line of communication and are thought to date from prehistoric times. The work at the Lower Icknield Way Site B identified a late Iron Age and Roman buried trackway running perpendicular to the Icknield Way and parallel to the holloway at Drayton Beauchamp. The holloway forms the medieval parish boundary of Drayton Beauchamp and Buckland, the elongated medieval strip parish to the south. Both the buried track and the holloway appear to form components of a grid of lanes and fields lying at the foot of the Chiltern scarp. This grid is clearly earlier than the Roman road Akeman Street which slices obliquely through it. The track from Site B indicates that the medieval elongated parishes overlay a much earlier landscape dating to prehistoric times.

The Environmental Approach

The Highways Agency aims to minimise the effects of road works on the environment. To reduce the impact on archaeological remains we identified the key elements to take into account in deciding on the detailed design. The evaluation was through:

• Desk-based assessment - An assessment of the previously known sites and historic landscape.
• Fieldwalking - Surface collection and plotting of artefacts from ploughed fields along the route.
• Geophysical Survey - A rapid survey of the route followed by detailed survey of areas of potential interest.
• Trenching -Sample excavation within areas of archaeological interest highlighted by the above techniques.

The desk-based assessment showed that the high ground of the Chiltern scarp, the 'Icknield Belt' and the Vale of Aylesbury through which the bypass runs are rich in archaeological remains. Iron Age and Roman sites exist in the vicinity of the bypass, the line of the Roman road of Akeman Street below the existing A41 through Aston Clinton. Two high status medieval moated sites are at Drayton Beauchamp and at Vatches Farm, Aston Clinton. The works avoided these sites. The road location close to the Vatches Farm moated site was designed to have no effect on the water level within the moat.

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Fieldwalking of available ploughed land located one significant scatter of Roman pottery in fields on either side of the Lower Icknield Way (Site B). Geophysical survey confirmed the presence of buried archaeological features at the Lower Icknield Way Site (Site B), a possible feature to the north (Site C) and buried ditch lines on the crest of Tring Hill towards the south eastern end of the scheme (Site D).

Trenching was conducted at Site A (at Vatches Farm), B, C and D. The trenches at Site A failed to reveal any features associated with the medieval moated site. The expected Roman occupation site at Lower Icknield Way Site B was confirmed along with early Saxon and late Iron Age features. Site C was found to be a post-medieval feature, and a late Iron Age ditch and undated features were identified at Tring Hill Site D.

Care, thought and expert knowledge were applied throughout the project planning and construction process to overcome the potential archaeological impacts of the bypass. We agreed a mitigation strategywith English Heritage and Buckinghamshire County Council. This entailed route realignment, archaeological excavation ahead of construction and a watching brief during construction. The bypass was realigned to avoid the medieval moated sites at Drayton Beauchamp and Vatches Farm. Detailed excavation and recording was undertaken at Lower Icknield Way Site B, and an intensive archaeological watching brief was undertaken at Vatches Farm/Woodland Roundabout Site A, beyond the excavation area at Site B, and at Tring Hill Site D. We kept a watching brief throughout the topsoil stripping phase to identify and record any further archaeological finds, during which two unsuspected sites were revealed, an early Saxon cemetery and a medieval windmill base at Tring Hill Site D, and an Iron Age site at the Woodlands Roundabout at Site A.