HER 3759 DESCRIPTION:-

Ancient oven, tiles & coins found AD1850-60.

Excavations by GT Harding in 1961 revealed the remains to be those of a cottage dating from the late C15 or early C16. It was previously listed by O'Neil and Grinsell as a doubtful round barrow.{4}{1}

Of minor archaeological significance and doubtfully, from its situation, to be associated with the park. The walling stands as excavated to a height of 1.0m.{2}

GADARG list this as a round barrow {6} although it is not {pers comm J Pack}.

Resembles round barrow with large central cavity but marked 'Ancient oven-tiles and coins found 1850-60' on OS 6"{5}.{6}

Building excavated by Harding 1961. Walls up to 1m high- whole site is overgrown and deteriorating-looks like a cottage {8}.

Extracts from newspaper cuttings 1959 in Glos City Libary. Glos Citizen 23-6-1962 shows photo of standing walls{8}

1961 GLOUCESTERSHIRE : BRIMPSFIELD (SO192 I I 24). Excavation by G. T. Harding on a site previously classified as a round barrow showed it to contain the foundations of a house measuring internally 14.25 by 19.25ft. and orientated lengthwise almost due N-S. with a gable at each end. An entrance lies almost mid~vay along the W. wall. A fireplace is built into the thickness of the N. wall and there is a spiral stone staircase at the NW. corner, giving access to a conjectured upper chamber. The walls are typical Cotswold dry-stone walls of local oolitic limestone set without mortar, the E. and W. walls being revetted witli a rubble bank to withstand the thrust of the roof trusses.

Absence of Cotswold roofing-tiles would suggest that the house was thatched.Representative pottery is a reddish-brown coarse ware with, usually, a transparent glaze on the interior of the vessel, which is dated by J. G. Hurst as of the mid 16th to mid 17th century; in view of this dating and other evidence, the excavator believes that this cottage was built in the late 15th or early 16th century. {Source Work 3802.}

1961 In 1961, an excavation was undertaken on a mound in Hazel Hanger Wood, Climperwell, which has been diagnosed as the site of a post-medieval, dry stone walled rectangular structure, possibly with rounded corners. There was some justification for the above diagnosis for the 6 inch OS map carried a caption that here, c1860, tile and pottery, as well as coins, had been found, moreover, local residents still called the site "Roman Ovens".

Immediately before the projected excavation commenced the B & G Archaeological society published Grinsell and O'Neil's Catalogue of Gloucestershire round barrows which included Climperwell mound. Two years of excavation revealed a beautifully constructed dry-stone walled two storied cottage which had initially served as a hunting lodge within the then Royal deer park at Climperwell. This cottage, measuring internally 4.3m by 5.9m, was oriented almost due north-south. An entrance lay midway along the west wall, a fireplace was built into the north wall and a stone spiral staircase in the north-west corner gave access to the upper chamber. The east and west walls were revetted with a rubble bank. Pottery finds included Tudor green glazed ware as well as Stroat ware, which had been used by the last occupants of the building. This last remark is used somewhat guardedly for the last real occupants were two yoke of oxon for which the managers had been provided against the east wall of the building and whose discarded ox-plates had been piled in one corner. The latter owner or tenant of the cottage had ploughed two long terraced strips below the cottage parallel to the Climperwell valley, each strip possessing an area of about half an acre. Since the only coins which could date the site were two brass farthings of Charles I, it was supposed that the draft oxen which had been used to plough the strips also, lived in that reign, thus, the lyncheted fields had not been constructed prior to AD 1625. At the north end of the flight of lynchets there was a moss covered bank of stones which had been collected from the fields, thus was formed the core of the ploughed headland. It has been noted elsewhere that dry-stone walled structures may disintegrate without usage and attention within five decades, thus forming a mound which has the appearance of an excavated barrow.{9}

The doubtful round barrow is SMR 8078. Could the long terraced strips referred to in (9) be SMR 4688 ? (pers comm Mike Taylor - 1989).

1999 - Site visit (12-04-1999) by T Grubb (with Charlotte Armitage (ESA), landowner and Harold Wingham) in connection with a Woodland Grant Scheme and ESA application. Despite Mr Wingham's belief that the 1961 excavation had been backfilled the site had clearly been open to the elements for some time and had suffered from tree root and frost damage. The owner Mr Broadstock agreed to clear the site of trees and manage it as an open area.