Road to the Manor

Oxford Archaeology undertook a series of excavations in 2015-16 at Graven Hill on the former site of MoD Bicester, a large military storage and distribution centre built during the Second World War.The archaeological works revealed evidence of prehistoric, Roman, medieval and post-medieval activity, as well as finds relating to the use of the military site during the 1940s and 1950s. Ephemeral signs of early prehistoric activity were limited to stone tools, including an impressive Neolithic axe head, and a Bronze Age cremation burial.The first sign of occupation dated to the middle Iron Age in the form of a small settlement on the northern slope of the hill.A late Iron Age settlement to the north-west appeared to have been abandoned shortly after the Roman invasion, perhaps as a direct consequence of the arrival of the army at Alchester, 1.6km west of Graven Hill.This coincided with the construction of Akeman Street, the alignment of which was discovered to circumnavigate the north sid