Data from a Test Pitting at Copthall North Fields CNA and CNG, Hillingdon, 2019 (HS2 Phase One)

This collection comprises site data (digital photographs, spreadsheets, specialist reports, scanned trench and context sheets, registers and drawings) from an archaeological trial trench evaluation undertaken by Wardell Armstrong LLP on land at Copthall North, Ruislip in the London Borough of Hillingdon, between 17th July and 23rd August 2019. The project was later archived and deposited by Archaeology Wales. Of the 29 trenches excavated across Fields CNA and CNG, only one contained a potentially significant archaeological feature. The remains of the 17th/18th century kiln in Trench CNA01 are of local and regional significance, representing the production of ceramic building material, probably for local domestic use. The semi-subterranean rectangular kiln had been cut into the slope at the extreme southwest end of Field CNA. It is likely that the kiln was constructed to fire handmade bricks and/or roof tiles over a short though intensive period. A large amount of post-medieval ceramic building material was also recovered from the topsoil and subsoil across both Fields CNA and CNG, possibly indicating the spread of material from the kiln or from other, as-yet unidentified kilns in the immediate area. New kiln sites may even be identified where similar concentrations of brick and tile have been recovered across the research area; the propensity for the recovery of such material precluding general manuring activity. The post-medieval kiln, therefore, has the potential to add to wider scheme objectives as identified in the GWSI: HERDS (HS2-HS2-EV-STR-000-000015) document, with particular relevance to KC44: "How did rural industries fare, and what was their contribution to society over the period of the urban-centred industrial revolution". The kiln is reflective of local rural industry, preceding the intensive factory-based industry of the later 18th and 19th century. Further analysis of the kiln at Field CNA on a local level, may reveal to which estate/hall the kiln was attached, and whether it parallels other similar rural industrial sites of the same period across the region. The site also has the potential to add to research in landscape development around green or dispersed settlements in the wider Colne Valley in the later medieval period through the further investigation of the palaeochannel identified in Field CNA. The site has the potential of addressing specific objectives as identified in the GWSI: HERDS (HS2-HS2-EV-STR-000-000015) document. These include KC40: "Identify patterns of change within the medieval rural settlement from the 11th to mid-14th century" and perhaps even to wider scheme objectives such as KC35: "Investigate the impacts on rural communities of social and economic shocks in the mid-14th century and thereafter and their contribution to settlement desertion". The dataset should be considered as part of the Copthall North dataset, which includes 1S19CHNTT Copthall North Trial Trenching, Fields CNC and CND and 1S19CHNTT Trial Pitting Field CNB.