Description

In May 2005 an archaeological evaluation was undertaken by Channel 4’s ‘Time Team’ in the village of Islip in Oxfordshire (centred on NGR 452900 214300), to investigate the hypothesis that the village has both Anglo-Saxon origins and a Royal connection.
The evaluation was concentrated within the village and was focussed in and around the garden of a house called ‘Confessor’s Gate’, with further work being carried out within Manor Farm where a series of earthworks representing a moated site with associated fishponds and ornamental gardens are located.
The primary aim of the evaluation was to test the assertion that a chapel dedicated to the first Patron Saint of England, Edward the Confessor, and a Saxon palace or a Royal hunting lodge of his father Æthelred ‘Unræd’, were located within the village.
Edward himself is believed to have been born in the village. The chapel was recorded as having been converted into a barn sometime before 1718 and subsequently used as farm buildings. The project also aimed to confirm that the area of the earthworks to the east of the village are the remains of the moated Manor house of the 14th century Abbot of Westminster, William de Curtlington.
A series of 15 trenches was excavated within the village and around the moated site east of the village, to evaluate the location, extent, character, date, and significance of any underlying archaeology.