More information : SP 916538 A small excavation some years ago on the interior of a ring-work in a field called the Bury about 100yds N of the Saxon church produced some shelly sherds from a stony surface. (1)
The Bury. Presumably a ring-work predating Lavendon Castle. A roughly circular earthwork 40yds in diameter 3ft high with a central depression quarried in the SE. (2)
'The Bury', the limit of which is banded on the OS 6" is a field under pasture. The northern half has little disturbed rig and furrow while the southern half shows ground disturbance, with banks and hollows forming no coherent pattern. This disturbance is consistent with village shrinkage.
There is no trace of an independent earthwork, nor any local information of a former work. The specific feature on the DOE scheduling list appears to be that centred at SP 91605374. This is a kidney shaped amorphous swelling, c 0.8m high, with no intelligible dimensions, which could well have been formed by dumping. According to the farmer, the above excavation was made in this mound but it was no more than a trial hole dug by a local amateur c 20 years ago. (3)
The earthworks described above were visible as earthworks on lidar imagery and were mapped as part of the Bedford Borough NMP project. However no features visible resemble a medieval ringwork. It could be it has since been altered or been partly destroyed, or possibly misinterpreted. There are amorphous ‘lumps and bumps’ at SP 91605 53751, which is overlain by a possible Post-medieval boundary ditch, which forms an enclosure. To the north is a boundary bank adjacent to medieval ridge and furrow, and a trackway or hollow way which extends from SP 91536 53815 to SP 91581 53746. To the west are two ponds or perhaps water filled quarries. A possible building platform is visible as a slight rectangular banked enclosure at SP 91564 53740, which would suggest that this is an area of settlement shrinkage. (4) |