Medieval Occupation at Slough Cemetery and Arbour Vale School, Stoke Road and Whitby Road, Slough (Paperback)

This paper details the findings of two archaeological excavations undertaken at locations on the northern fringes of Slough, Berkshire (though one of the sites was just across into Buckinghamshire), as well as features from an evaluation.

On a site destined to become an extension to Slough cemetery, an area defined within a substantial boundary ditch seems to have been used to quarry brickearth in the 12th or 13th-century, the quarries then filled with domestic waste. Although finds included substantial building materials such as faced flint nodules and tile, no structural remains were present below-ground. There was evidence for a short-lived burst of blacksmithing. Pottery came from a variety of sources, suggestive of at least some wealth wherever the accompanying houses may have been.

At Arbour Vale School, just a little further south, very similar quarrying appears to date perhaps a century earlier. Here, again, there was no real evidence for a habitation other than limited disposal of domestic waste, and finds were every sparse, suggesting that this site is more likely to represent a single farm.

At Whitby Road in Slough Trading Estate, an area with little recorded archaeology, further early medieval features were revealed below a buried soil during an evaluation. The subsequent development groundworks did not expose the archaeological levels in this location and the significance of these deposits will have to await a future opportunity for study.