ARCHAEOLOGISTS digging at The Queen’s College say new evidence could provide key answers about Oxford’s early expansion.

Oxford Archaeology has been excavating at the High Street college as part of work to build an underground library extension.

But the firm says it has discovered the remains of 11th century buildings, which could provide “the largest piece of evidence to-date” in a long-running debate about how Oxford first developed.

The archaeologists have also found a Second World War Anderson bomb shelter, as well as what is left of a 17th and 18th century building compound from the construction of the college buildings.

Project manager Richard Brown said the discovery of the 11th century remains was significant, because it offered clues about how Oxford expanded to the east after its foundation.

It is thought to have been laid out at the turn of the 10th century as an Anglo-Saxon burh – a fortified town with streets on a grid pattern – at the edge of King Alfred the Great’s kingdom of Wessex.

Mr Brown said: “It was part of the defensive system used to defend Wessex against the Vikings and the Danes.

“We have an idea of how big the town was, but where we are digging has not been excavated before.

“What we are interested in finding out are the answers to questions like ‘was Oxford actually the size we think it was?’ and ‘how did it end up the size it was in the 13th century?’ “We want to fill in the gaps in our knowledge about the chronology of its development.”

The Queen’s College lies east of where the Anglo-Saxon burh was located, but within the medieval walled town.

The burh is thought to have extended from the Westgate shopping centre area, east to Catte Street, as well as from Ship Street in the north to where Christ Church now lies.

Archaeologists think the eastern area where The Queen’s College was later built may have been an addition to the burh and are looking for evidence of the expansion.

So far, Mr Brown said, the angle of the buildings underneath the college seem to suggest they were not part of the original burh and that the expansion had not taken place during the 11th century.

Mr Brown said: “The buildings are at an almost 45-degree angle to everything else, which suggests they were not part of the town.

He added: “These thoughts will keep developing though, so we will see how things develop.”