More information : (SJ 356057) A test trench was excavated by Mr and Mrs P C Ozanne in 1958 across the inner ditch of a small valley fort discovered by Dr St Joseph. Three pre-Roman phases were tentatively distinguished (the earliest, a simple palisade trench) and four small fragments of pottery were found before flooding prevented completion of work. The excavation of one of eighteen nearby low turf covered mounds was also halted. In August '59 excavations were resumed and it revealed two concentric ditches and a metalled trackway through the eastward side of the vanished bank. A little early Medieval pottery was found and Miss L F Chitty suggests that this may be the lost Domesday Manor of Rea. The name of the field is Big Dollis, with Little Dollis adjacent: can this be Welsh dol, a meadow, LLys, a court? - or is it merely a variant of the field name Dole, "a share in the common field". (1-2)
The first phase of this valley floor site, a single palisaded enclosure, is listed by Challis and Harding under 'Curvilinear enclosures' (Iron Age'). (3)
Similar information. (4)
SJ 35670575: This site lies within a pasture field upon a gentle, east-facing slope, 300.0m north of the Rea Brook. The cropmarks (b) are of two concentric circular ditches, the inner about 90.0m in diameter, the outer, 120.0m in diameter, the ditches being 10.0m to 20.0m apart. Nothing was seen on the ground to account for the air photograph markings, neither the site of the 1958/59 excavations nor the 18 low mounds referred to (1) could be recognised. (5)
This enclosure was recorded as part of the Cambridge University Cropmark Project 1981-5. It is slightly larger than stated above, the inner ring having a diameter of approximately 105m and the outer approximately 130m. There is also a possible entrance in both ditch circuits facing almost due south. See project archive for further details (Collection UID: 1035090). (6) |