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Roman Britain in 1938
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
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Mr. V. E. Nash-Williams reports discoveries on three sites. (1) At Llantwit Major, Glamorganshire, where a house was partially excavated in 1888, trial cuttings showed that the structural remains covered an area of about 2 acres, enclosing roughly a square of about 300 ft., on the N, S, and W sides of which were the main buildings with detached outbuildings on the E side. In its final stage the plan was of winged-corridor type with main range on the W and others to the N and S, the latter possibly additional; it was fronted by an internal colonnade of imported freestone and faced on to a cobbled courtyard. A subsidiary range had been tacked on at right angles to the N wing. The walls of local limestone and sandstone remained up to 6 ft. and were decorated with coloured plaster; the floors were mostly of opus signinum. A hypocaust or furnace-chamber in the western or main range, after long use, had been filled in with refuse and a small iron-smelting furnace had been built over it. Two rooms in the N wing, opened in 1888, were cleared ; much of the geometric pavement survived. Three or four more skeletons were found ; they had been buried in rough cists sunk into the pavement or cut through the walls, and therefore at a period when the house was no longer in use. A massively constructed outbuilding, measuring 80 by 26 ft., stood just within the remains of a ditch system. (2) At Caerleon a trench was cut on the SW side of White Hart Lane in the praetentura of Isca abutting on the SE defences. It revealed the primary clay rampart, 15 ft. wide and 6 ft. high, with the inner face of the latest stone rampart outside it ; inside the rampart, and between it and the rampart roadway, a stone building had been inserted (cf. JRS xix, 182). The roadway was 20 ft. wide and heavily metalled and was bordered by the stone culvert of the main drainage-system. On the inner side of the roadway the walls and floor of a stone building, probably a barrack-block, were found.
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References
1 Arch. Cambr. xciii, 255 f.; it should be compared with the house at Watts Wells, Ditchley, Oxon., Oxoniensia i, 24 ff.
2 JRS xxiv, pl. vi.
3 Arch. Cambr. xciv, 107.
4 Arch. Cambr. xciv, 108 ff. The small finds included a ballista-ball and part of two small Doric capitals of Bath stone, surmised to come from a resident officer's quarters.
5 Information from Mrs. Williams, Royal Institute of South Wales, Swansea.
6 Bulletin of Bd. of Celtic Studies ix, 379.
7 Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland Proc., lxxiii, 110 ff.
8 Messrs. I. A. Richmond and James McIntyre have kindly confirmed this account of Torwood and Fairholm from independent observations made in 1936.
9 A full account of this work is to be published by the Glasgow Archaeological Society.
10 Arch. Ael. ser. 4, xvi, 140 ff.
11 Arch. Ael. ser. 4, xiii, 201 ff.
12 Arch. Ael. ser. 3, v, 311, fig. 2.
13 Cf. JRS xxiv, 202, xxvi, 243; Northumb. & Durham Archit. and Arch. Soc. Trans. vii, 235 ff.
14 The report is published Northumb. & Durham Archit. and Arch. Soc. Trans. ix, 43 ff.
15 Interim report in Yorks. Arch. Journ. xxxiv, 342; vii, 284.
16 JRS xxvi, 244.
17 Cf. JRS xxviii, 179, and Yorks. Arch. Journ. xxxiv, 232.
18 Num. Chron. 5th ser. xix, 104.
19 JRS xxviii, 179.
20 Proc. Prehist. Soc. n.s. iv, 1938, 311Google Scholar.
21 Mr. C. F. C. Hawkes, who proposes a date about A.D. 60–70 for this object, remarks that ‘the fine swinging curves of the design terminating in rosettes accompanied by “trumpet” motifs are not far from the style of the Aesica brooch; the upper border is formed of a cast bronze strip, decorated with a native rendering of a Roman leaf-shaped motive in a field of red champlevé enamel.’ The panel is to be published by Messrs. Philip Corder and C. F. C. Hawkes in the Antiq. Journ., vol. xx.
22 Cf. Antiqs. Journ. xviii, 262; xix, 207. A submerged sea-going boat, 43 ft. long, found on the shore just below North Ferriby by Messrs. Wright may possibly be connected with this village. See Antiquity, xiii, 349 ff.
23 Derbs. Arch. Journ. xxvi, 177 ff.
24 Interim report by Mr. Richmond ibid., n.s. xiii, 53 ff.
25 Trans, of Thoroton Soc. xvii, 1 ff.
26 Archaeologia viii, 363; full bibliography and plans in VCH Notts. ii, 30 ff; for a similar plan see first stone house at Ditchley, Oxoniensia i, 24; for the linch-pin, Antiqs. Journ. xviii, 176 f. and Prehist. Soc. Proc. v, 1939, 187, 192Google Scholar.
27 Antiqs. Journ. xix, 441, pl. lxxxvii.
27a We are indebted to Mr. F. Cottrill and Miss Kenyon for the loan of the plan shown in fig. 13.
28 Déchelette, Vases céramiques ornés, ii, 167 ff.
29 Information from Mr. C. F. C. Hawkes and Mr. Robert Bray. The mould has been given by Mr. Bray to the British Museum, and will be published with discussion in the Antiquaries Journal, vol. xx. The design shows a youthful long-haired figure, seemingly playing a ball-game with three balls and a curved stick.
30 Antiquity xiii, 178 ff.; the camp ‘complete with four parallel ditches’ was first seen from the air in 1930 by Mr. O. G. S. Crawford (ibid. iv, 274). Mr. I. Margary, on the other hand, holds that Ermine Street was earlier; ibid. xiii, 414 ff. (cf. 455 ff.) with a later air-view of the western side of the camps.
31 Information from Dr. J. K. St. Joseph: and Mr. H. R. Hodgkinson who excavated the Dodderhill site for the Birmingham and Worcestershire Archaeological Societies. For the graffito, see below, p. 227, no. 13.
32 The report is published in Bucks Records xiii, 398 ff., but the evidence for the dates is not given either in the text or in the illustrations. There is a list of the pottery with dates, but no indication of where any particular objects were found.
33 Archaeologia lxxi, 152, pl. xv, 2—the ‘double T’ -shaped oven.
34 In Insula xvii, see Archaeologia lxxxiv, pl. 71; cf. R. Grove Lowe, Descr. of the Roman Theatre of Verulam (1848), plan.
35 Brief report without the evidence by Miss K. M. Richardson in the St. Albans & Herts. Archit. & Arch. Society's Transactions n.s. v, 214 ff.; a full report is to appear in Archaeologia.
36 Cambridge Archaeological Society Proceedings xxxviii, 170 ff.; cf. CAS Communications vi (1891), 395Google Scholar.
37 Information from Commander F. R. Mann. The line of the road can be seen continuing diagonally across the NW quarter of the town in the air-photograph published by Professor Donald Atkinson in Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society Proceedings xxiv, 1931, 136, pl. i, and Antiquity iii, 183.
38 Information from Mr. Brown, who carried out the work with Mr. Guy Maynard for the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Ipswich Museum.
39 Information from Mr. M. R. Hull; cf. JRS ix, 157. For the inscribed amphora see below, p. 227, no. 12.
40 During the winter 1937–8 the property changed hands, and by arrangement with Messrs. Fairhazel Estates, Ltd., the new owners, the Committee was able to undertake excavation in this 20-acre field on the E slope of Sheepen Hill, financed as before by the Colchester Corporation, the Society of Antiquaries, the University of Oxford Craven Committee, the Administrators of the Haverfield Bequest, and by contributions in response to an appeal issued to members of this Society and others. Mr. M. R. Hull was in charge, in consultation with Mr. C. F. C. Hawkes.
41 The full report is now being re-written to incorporate the 1938 material, and publication as a Report of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries is intended,
42 Information from Colchester Museum.
43 Roman London (RCHM), p. 142.
44 Mr. F. Cottrill sent information of nos 1–3, Mr. Quintin Waddington of no. 4 and Professor J. B. Ward Perkins of no. 5.
45 W. H. Knowles in Bristol and Gloucester Arch. Soc. Trans, lx, 165 ff.
45a Archaeologia xix, 178 ff. with plan.
45b Eight coins of Valentinian I and Valens were found in the filling of a hypocaust after it had ceased functioning.
45C Published in Antiqs. Journ. xix, 194.
45d Information kindly sent by Mrs. E. M. Clifford.
46 Interim Report with map in Bath and District Branch of the Somerset Arch, and N.H. Soc. Proc. 1934–38, 234.
47 Num. Chron. ser. 5, xix, 1939, 128 ff., where Mr. Pearce draws attention to the resemblance of this hoard to one found at Lydney and to the presence of little-worn coins minted at Siscia at the end of Valentinian's reign which are rare in Danubian hoards; the hoard and container are in private possession.
48 Information from Mr. R. Goodchild who makes the suggestion—which awaits proof—that the building was a bakehouse, two querns and a stone mortar having been found on the site previously,
49 F. Cottrill, Devon Arch. Exploration Soc. Proc. iii, 59.
50 Cf. Archaeologia, Ixxxiii, 237 ff.
51 An Interim Report is published in the Dorset NH and Arch. Soc. Proc. lx, 51 ff.
52 The existence of a shrine was surmised by Haverfield, F., Roman Britain in 1913 (Brit. Acad. 1914) 49Google Scholar; Romanisation of Roman Britain (3rd ed.), 73; Bath and District Branch of the Somerset N.H. and Arch. Soc. Proc. 1914–18, 50 (= Wilts Arch. Mag. xxxviii, 113), where he mentions also the record (Wilts. Arch. Mag. vii, 73) of a discovery some years previous to 1859 of a relief of a hunter spearing a stag, probably Diana, together with ‘a heap of about 300 bronze coins mostly of the lower empire’. The Diana relief, much broken, is now in the hands of Mr. A. D. Passmore. For the exact site see Wilts Arch. Mag. xlv, 198. For the amphora stamp TFANVS (often with MRVIC) see CIL xiii, 10002, 209; xv, 2, 2831d.
53 Information from Mr. Shaw Mellor and Mr. R. Goodchild, who will publish a full report in the Wilts Archaeological Magazine. The small objects are now in Atworth School Museum, but the ornament (pl. xxv, 2) published by H. de S. Short in WAM xlviii, 459 f., is in Salisbury Museum.
54 Wilts Arch. Mag. xxiii, 183 and plan; the objects are in Devizes Museum.
55 Detailed report by R. Goodchild and J. S. P. Bradford in Oxoniensia iv, 1 ff.
56 Information from Mrs. Murray-Threipland, who carried out the work also this year for the Littlehampton Natural Science and Archaeological Society, and Mr. Sherriff, R. C.. The report is published in Sussex Arch. Collections vol. lxxx, 89 ffGoogle Scholar.
57 Sussex Arch. Col. lxxx, 29ff.; cf. JRS xxiii, 209.
58 Perkins, J. B. Ward in Arch. Cant. 1, 164Google Scholar; for the circular tomb see VCH. Kent, iii, 119 f.