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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



Longstones Field 

 Beckhampton 



Fig. 1. Longstones field, Beckhampton: plan of the 2000 excavations. Trenches shown in stipple outline relate to the 

 1999 season. 



Seven trenches were opened by machine: two 

 within the interior of the enclosure (Trenches 20 

 and 21); two across the northern part of the 

 enclosure ditch circuit (25 and 26); and three large 

 areas along the line of the Avenue and southern 

 ditch circuit (22 and 23), including the area around 

 and to the south-west of the Cove (24) (Figure 1 ) . 

 Though the enclosure ditch was exposed in 

 Trenches 25 and 26, it was not dug. With the 

 exception of traces of medieval and later cultivation, 

 no features were observed within Trenches 20 and 

 2 1 , nor were any lithic artefacts recovered from the 

 ploughsoil overlying these trenches. 



The Enclosure 



The main excavation of the enclosure ditch took 

 place in Trench 23. Originally intended as a 5 x 

 10m area centred upon the predicted position of 

 the south terminal flanking the main enclosure 



entrance, the trench was considerably extended 

 following the realisation that the ditch continued 

 for a further 30m to the east. In fact, the ditch 

 extended into the area of Trench 10 of 1999, its 

 course not being recognised at the time due to a 

 combination of its very chalky upper fill and the 

 extremely dry conditions of that year. In total, 35m 

 of the ditch (an entire segment) was exposed and 

 26m of its length excavated. 



The cut of the ditch was noticeably irregular. 

 Though gently curving in plan, the segment appears 

 to have been made up of three conjoined lengths of 

 straight ditch, each length itself being formed 

 through the digging of inter-cutting elongated pits. 

 It varied between 0.7 to 0.85m deep and 1 .5 to 2m 

 wide with sides moderately steep to near vertical, 

 and the base flat (Figure 2). 



The sequence of fills was identical to those 

 encountered in the ditch sections dug in 1999. 

 There was a primary fill of loose chalk rubble, 



