Lumps and bumps
23 November 2022
Seen from the air, Port Meadow is a great flat expanse, sometimes grassy green, sometimes practically a lake when the river is in flood. But at ground level, there are all sorts of intriguing lumps and bumps, many of them traces of people’s activities decades or centuries ago. You may have noticed the Iron Age hut circles south of Godstow Lock, set back from the river, which are perhaps the traces of a summer grazing settlement similar to the one excavated at Farmoor in the 1970s. It was occupied around the time that winter flooding became usual, because of deforestation of steep Cotswold valleys further up the river, depositing the thick layer of alluvium – soil, sand and gravel – that covers the floodplain today. On Wolvercote Common the irregular traces of 18th century gravel digging can be seen south of the Jubilee Gate – what my children used to call the puddle maze.
The Shiplake ditch forms the boundary between Wolvercote Common and Port Meadow, and there is a series of inscribed boundary markers dated 1899 along its course. It is crossed by two stone bridges, one towards the eastern end and one near the allotments, which were part of the Duke of Marlborough’s racecourse. This can be easily traced as a raised causeway across the Common, and then south from the eastern bridge, though the western part of the loop on Port Meadow is harder to find. The concrete ‘target hut’ in the ditch south of the allotments is left over from artillery training during the First World War – it wasn’t itself the target, but protected those observing how accurately targets were hit. It is now in a dangerous condition and should not be approached. At the north and south ends of the allotments the traces of abandoned plots can be seen – the 20th century’s contribution to the lumps and bumps on the meadow. The history of this amazing piece of common land is the reason it is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
By Julie Hamilton – December 2022
