This volume brings together the results from the excavations at the
former Imperial College Sports Ground, RMC Land and Land East of Wall
Garden Farm, near the villages of Harlington and Sipson in the London
Borough of Hillingdon. The excavations revealed parts of an
archaeological landscape with a rich history of development from before
4000 BC to the post-medieval period. The opportunity to investigate two
large areas of this landscape provided evidence for possible settlement
continuity and shift over a period of 6000 years. Early to Middle
Neolithic occupation was represented by a rectangular ditched mortuary
enclosure and a large spread of pits, many containing deposits of
Peterborough Ware pottery, flint and charred plant remains. A possible
dispersed monument complex of three hengiform enclosures was associated
with the rare remains of cremation burials radiocarbon dated to the
Middle Neolithic. Limited Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age activity
was identified, which is in stark contrast to the Middle to Late Bronze
Age when a formalized landscape of extensive rectangular fields,
enclosures, wells and pits was established. This major reorganized land
division can be traced across the two sites and over large parts of the
adjacent Heathrow terraces. A small, Iron Age and Romano-British
nucleated settlement was constructed, with associated enclosures
flanking a trackway. There were wayside inhumations, cremation burials
and middens and more widely dispersed wells and quarries. Two possible
sunken-featured buildings of early Saxon date were found. There was also
a small cemetery. Subsequently, a middle Saxon and medieval field system
of small enclosures and wells was established.
