The Colchester Archaeologist 2002 - Colchester Archaeological Trust

36 Pages·2008·5.88 MB·English

With thanks to all the contributors to this issue of the magazine -
Pat Brown of Colchester Young Archaeologists' Club
Mike Corbishley of English Heritage Education
Essex County Council Heritage Conservation
James Fawn
Andrew Phillips
Front cover: Trust excavator Laura
Gadsby holding a piece of painted
Roman wall-plaster in the Roman cellar
where it was excavated.
Friends
of the Colchester Archaeological Trust
If you are interested in following archaeological
discoveries in Colchester, then why not consider joining
designed by Gillian Adams
the Friends of the Colchester Archaeological Trust?
unattributed text by Howard Brooks
Membership continues to rise and now stands at about
with additional material by Carl Crossan
450 individuals and families. The subscription rates are
modest, and include an annual copy of the Colchester
archaeologist magazine delivered to you as soon as it is
published. You can also join tours of current sites and
organised trips to places of historical and archaeological
Printed by PrintWright Ltd, Ipswich
interest in the region.
© Colchester Archaeological Trust 2002
The annual subscription rates:
Adults and institutions £3.50
ISSN 0952-0988
Family membership £4.50
Children and students £2.50
Further details can be obtained from Maureen Jones,
All images copyright
Friends of Colchester Archaeological Trust, 5 Ashwin
Colchester Archaeological Trust
Avenue, Copford, Colchester, Essex C06 1BS or
unless stated otherwise
www.friends-of-cat.ndo.co.uk
The Colchester archaeologist magazine is largely funded by the
Friends of Colchester Archaeological Trust - see page 32.
The Trust is grateful to Colchester Borough Council for placing an
advertisement on page 33 and for its support of the magazine.
The Colchester Archaeological Trust is a full-time pro-
fessional unit, providing developers and others with a full
range of archaeological services, from consultancies and site
evaluations to full excavation. We have over 25 years'
experience of working in partnership with construction
industry professionals and local government planning
departments. The Trust is a registered charity and a company
limited by guarantee.
We design and publish our own reports, books and
magazines in-house.
Colchester Archaeological Trust
12 Lexden Road,
Colchester,
Essex C03 3NF
tel.: [phone]
Picture on opposite page: view of the tel./fax: [phone]
St Mary's hospital site from the Hilly email: [email protected]
Fields; the tower of the Town Hall is web site: www.colchester-arch-trust.co.uk
visible in the background.
contents
In brief... 2
A British farm under the Romans
final excavations at the Abbotstone site near Colchester Zoo 4
Salt of the earth!
ancient salt-making at Great Wigborough 7
New light on Colchester Castle
heavy smokers at the castle 8
Roman Colchester's western suburb 9
major excavations begin at the former St Mary's hospital 10
The Victorian workhouse
Andrew Phillips explains how it became an NHS hospital 16
Water supply in Roman Colchester
not equalled in the town for 1,200 years 18
Britain's first town wall
Roman public buildings recycled 19
(with reconstruction by Scout Design) 20
St John's Abbey explored 23
The Young Archaeologists' Club 27
for budding archaeologists in the Colchester area by Pat Brown
'Wis for... 28
the bell-maker's mark by James Fawn
Aerial archaeology of 'Constable country'
mapping the past from the air
by Essex County Council Heritage Conservation 29
The left luggage game
archaeology for young people
by Mike Corbishley of English Heritage Education 30
Friends of the Colchester Archaeological Trust 32
Mosaic found at the Victoria Inn
part of a large Roman house north of the River Colne 33-34
and earlier discoveries at the Victoria Inn
In brief...
Open day at St Botolph's priory and
slide show of the St Mary's hospital
site on a monitor, using a laptop.
Web site
The Colchester Archae-
ological Trust has a
web-site. It features the
latest news about sites and
publications in Colchester,
as well as clickable maps
which allow visitors to
explore interactively some
Colchester archaeological
sites. Visit us at www.
colchester-arch-trust. Offering to a god?
co.uk. Complete Roman pots character-
ise cemetery sites - they are
relatively rare inside the town
walls, where burial was not gener-
ally allowed in Roman times.
Pottery from the town centre is
Mr Currey's garden almost always broken discarded
rubbish. However, an almost com-
A few years ago, Mr Ralph
plete white-slipped pot was found
Currey generously permitted
in 2001, on a building site at
part of his garden wall to be
St Peter's Vicarage on North Hill.
taken down so that an archae-
Because it was probably deposit-
ological excavation could be
ed complete, it is likely to be part
continued into his garden by a
of a votive deposit containing
few feet. The purpose of the dig
food or drink offered to a god.
was to find the cremated
Examples of such 'votive' offerings
remains of a Roman cavalry
have been found occasionally in
officer called Longinus. The
the past in Colchester; they include
excavation was a continuation
a pot on the Lion Walk site which
of the one when James Fawn of
was buried with the remains of
the Colchester Archaeological
three puppies.
Group had famously found the
missing face from Longinus' The work was funded by the Col-
tombstone. chester Borough Council.
In the event, Longinus' mortal
remains were nowhere to be
found, and the wall had to be
replaced. Tendring Construction Ltd very
kindly came to the rescue and sent master
bricklayer Phil 'Swampy' Baker along to
rebuild the wall (see picture).
Phil was keen to do the work because the
wall had been built in the rare 'rat-trap'
bond, and he felt that there was little
chance of his being able to work on a wall of Friends' donations
this kind again. He explained that rat-trap
Many thanks to the Friends of
bond was developed in the 1800s for two
CAT for their generosity over
reasons. It was designed to stop rats getting
this year. The Friends funded:
into roof spaces, and, being semi-hollow
the purchase of software for the
with cross bricks, rat-trap bond saved on
geophysics surveys, they paid
bricks.
for the hire of a ground-radar
Later in the same year, after the garden and machine for the town gates
wall had been restored, we were very survey (page 22), and they
saddened to learn of the death of Mr purchased a seat for the Roman
Currey. He was a former English and History church (page 32). The Friends
teacher at the Grammar School, and an also contributed more than
established poet with a national reputation. usual for last year's magazine
so that some of the pages inside
The Trust and the Colchester Archae-
could be in full colour.
ological Group are much indebted to Phil Volunteer David Sims helps to
Baker and Tendring Construction for their process finds from the excav-
help with the wall, and to the late Mr Currey ations. Thanks to all our volunt-
for his forbearance in making it all possible. eers for their help over the year.
2
A cautionary tale
Birch airfield was constructed by the United States Air Force in 1 943. In May
2001, when exploratory trenches were dug at the edge of the airfield, one of
the more unusual finds was a large pit containing equipment dumped by the
US 9th Air Force before returning home at the end of World War 2. No Glenn
Miller gramophone records or jeeps came to light, but instead a stove,
electrical items and broken plates were dug out of the upper levels of the pit.
The plates are British and include one stamped 'RAF 1941' (see picture),
which seems odd because Birch airfield was never used by the Royal Air
Force. There is an archaeological lesson to be learnt here: without the
wartime documentary record, it would be easy to assume wrongly from the
pottery evidence alone that Birch airfield had been a RAF base. We can only
hope that the Roman military did not exchange equipment in this manner.
The work was funded by Hanson Aggregates.
Careful where you stand!
Footprints sometimes occur on Rom-
an bricks. The culprits are usually
animals that have been allowed to
The Trust's book on
wander among the unfired bricks
the archaeology of
(laid out during the manufacturing
process). But a fragment recently Colchester up to
found on a site in West Lodge Road, circa 1200 AD has
Lexden bears the imprint of a hob- been reprinted. The
nailed boot and points
reprint was made
the finger, so to speak,
possible with the
at the brick-maker
generous support of
himself.
the Hervey Benham
Charitable Trust.
The work City of Victory is
was available in
funded by bookshops for
Crowdel I
£12.50.
Associates.
Trenching by the kilometre
The route of the new Northern Approaches Road where it passes through Severalls and
Cuckoo Farm had to be checked for archaeological remains, and so too did some
development land along part of the new road in an area to the west of the General Hospital.
Accordingly the Trust excavated over three kilometres of trenches by machine within the
space of about two months. This is the technique normally employed on development sites
to ensure that significant archaeological remains are not damaged or destroyed without
adequate record. In the event, various ditches and gullies of Iron Age and Roman date were
found on the site west of the hospital, whereas the route of the road through Severalls and
Cuckoo Farm was pronounced clear. More archaeological investigations seem likely in both
places.
The works were commissioned by Cofton Land and Property (the land west of the General Hospital)
and by AERC on behalf of the Secretary of State for Health (Cuckoo Farm and Severalls).
Pictures - right: a trench with the hospital in the background; below: view of part of the site,
looking towards Colchester town centre.
3
A British farm Where was Camulodunum?
'No man is an island', and neither is
any archaeological site. The Abbotstone
under the Romans site is part of a wider archaeological
landscape of international importance.
Other archaeological sites in the vicinity
are: the Stanway burial site (1400m
east); Grymes Dyke (1600m east); and
2001 saw the final season of excavation at the Abbotstone the late Iron Age and Roman site at
cropmark site, which is quite close to Colchester Zoo. Gosbecks, with its classical Roman
temple and theatre (east of Grymes
What was the nature of the site? Dyke). Camulodunum had two centres
Was it a Roman farm, and how is it connected with of activity: Gosbecks, which was prob-
ably the site of king Cunobelin's farm-
Camulodunum?
stead, and Sheepen (near the present-
day Colchester Institute), which was
predominantly concerned with trade and
manufacturing.
Camulodunum was defended by a
system of earthworks or dykes (see plan).
The burial site at Stanway was actually
outside the defences of Camulodunum,
though it was unquestionably linked to it
socially (and chronologically). Like Stan-
way, the Abbotstone site is also outside
the defended parts of Camulodunum.
The question then is, to what extent was
the Abbotstone site actually part of
Camulodunum? Another question is the
dynamic between native and Roman
settlement. Stanway was a native burial
site, and Gosbecks was a native site
which became Romanised. How does
the Abbotstone site fit into this picture?
Was it a native farmstead which co-
existed with Gosbecks and then out-
lived it, or was it taken over by Roman
settlers?
4
Previous excavations excavate the rest of the site late in 2000, Farming
but the very wet ground conditions pre-
Like Stanway and Gosbecks, Abbotstone It would appear that there was a gap in
vented much digging, and the season had
has been known for some time as a activity on the site until the late Iron Age,
to be cancelled.
cropmark site. Fieldwalking surveys (sur- when ditches were cut to define a large
face collections of objects) by the Trust enclosure. In fact the majority of the
in 1997 and 1998 scanned areas 2001 excavation features on the site were ditches defining
beyond the cropmarks, to check for prev- This year's task was to complete the three large enclosures - first the Iron
iously unknown archaeological remains. excavation of the remainder of the large Age one mentioned above, and then
We identified thin spreads of prehistoric Roman enclosure. This was no mean two separate Roman enclosures (north
flints and Roman brick and tile, with a task - standing water had to be pumped and south). The joint life-time of the
thin concentration of Roman brick and out of all the features, and the site had to enclosures spanned the later Iron Age to
tile directly north of the cropmark site. be scraped clean by machine to remove the mid 3rd century AD. The north (and
Surprisingly there was no surface mater- the silts which had washed onto the site larger) Roman enclosure had smaller
ial over the cropmark itself. The Trust over the winter. The main results have ditches or gullies splitting it into smaller
undertook a geophysical survey over been the discovery of many more ditch paddocks or fields, and other parallel
the cropmarks in 1998 which failed to lines than were visible on the air ditches marking out road lines which
establish the location of archaeological photographs or were expected after the were originally metalled. There were
features below the ploughsoil, possibly previous season of digging. A human several cremation burials, one of them
because the ground was too wet. The skull was found, with some broken an interesting post-burial (where a
cropmark site was extensively trial- pottery, in a Late Iron Age ditch near the cremation had been placed in a deep
trenched by the Trust in early 1999. This Middle Iron Age enclosure (see picture). post-hole which presumably held a large
at last pinpointed the surviving subsoil The lower jaw was missing, suggesting post to mark the spot). What was most
features, thereby identifying the areas that the skull had been placed here intriguing about the first season's work
where full-scale archaeological excav- when already decomposed. The skull was the complete absence of buildings.
ation should be carried out. may be the remains of a burial or
The Trust's excavation in 1999 showed perhaps a ritual deposit.
that the earliest activity here is repre- The remaining part of the ditch around
sented by a few worked flints of probable the house site was excavated, and
late Neolithic or Bronze Age date. The (gratifyingly) a ring of post-holes was
earliest important feature was a ditch discovered. These define the site of a
defining a roughly circular enclosure - a prehistoric structure (presumably a house)
potential prehistoric house site. There on this spot. The internal diameter of the
was no sign of the post-holes which post-hole ring was approximately 10m,
might show the position of a round- so with a conventional thatched roof
house, but the excavation of the ditch over-hanging this post-hole ring, the
produced Middle Iron Age pottery which structure might have been closer to
confirmed its prehistoric date (see mag- approximately 14m external diameter-
azine no 1 3). by no means a small building (see
The Trust excavation team returned to pictures).
Above: Ben Holloway uncovering
the human skull.
Left: plan of Camulodunum.
Opposite page -
Top: sketch of a Middle Iron Age
round-house.
Bottom: the team marking the
positions of the eleven post-holes
of the Middle Iron Age round-
house.
5
There was a short stretch of possible quantities of Roman window glass,
beam-slot associated with the post- roof-tile fragments and even flue-tiles
burial, but no other structural features at (normally associated with hypocaust
all. The southern (and smaller) Roman systems) coming from this site, there is
enclosure was equally intriguing. It had an obvious mis-match between the finds
opposed entrances, the northern one evidence and the site evidence. Perhaps
having a pair of gate-posts set back from the Roman structures were surface-built
the ditch line, which would imply the without rubble foundations, and have
existence of an internal bank with the left no trace. Perhaps these finds occur
gate between the ends of the bank. here as dumped rubbish, having been
transported from somewhere else.
Still describing the site as a series of
enclosures, it is now possible to suggest Abbotstone is a" site where we cannot
a sequence of development. The earliest come up with all the answers. However,
enclosure seems to have developed out the enclosures are part of a late Iron Age
of the circular Iron Age house site, and and mainly Roman rural site concerned
to have been added to progressively, principally with farming. If Roman build
until the enclosure was regularised by ings were erected here, they have not
being recut in the Roman period as our survived.
north enclosure. The south enclosure
What about the inhabitants? It is difficult
was added later on, also in the Roman
to see a radical change between the Iron
period. Some of the ditch lines are
Age enclosure and the Roman enclos
boundaries from an adjacent field
ures, so there is no basis for arguing for
system which join up with the enclosure
Roman settlers coming in to live on an
ditches, and remind us that the site was
Iron Age site (there is a lack of high
part of a wider farmed landscape.
status finds like coins and evidence of
Above: lines were paint-sprayed on the Given that the site was occupied from buildings). In fact, the lack of rich finds
ground to outline the archaeological the late Iron Age to the mid 3rd century, and the almost total absence of metal
features as they were uncovered by the question of the location of the living finds might indicate that it continued
machine. Parts of the features were then areas then arises. The Iron Age round as a native (British) site which never
hand-dug so that we could date them, house is an obvious focus for occup became a Roman villa, and was never
explore their physical characteristics, ation at that time, but what about the lived in by well-to-do Romano-Britons.
and recover environmental material. Roman period? It seems clear from the To take a different angle, perhaps the
quantities of pottery lack of buildings is a reflection of the fact
debris and occasional that the people who farmed here did not
cremation burials, the necessarily live here. Perhaps the site
cheese presses and the was owned by absentee landlords, who
large number of frag used a team of locals to work the land
ments of querns (used here, and perhaps even those workers
for grinding cereals into lived off site.
flour), that there was a
great deal of activity
here in Roman times,
mostly agricultural act The excavations at Abbotstone were
ivity. But where were the funded by Tarmac Quarry Products
buildings? With small Ltd.
Above: Sam Deeprose hard at work.
Right: an excavation through two intercutting
ditches, with Philip Lomas in the background.
6
Salt of the earth! Great Wigborough
Salt is one of life's necessities. Before the contracted by the Wildlife Trust to field-
discovery of the inland sources of salt in walk the site and then test-trench any
Cheshire and Warwickshire which still concentrations of material. The field-
supply us today, salt was produced walk revealed several surface concent-
mainly by distillation of sea water at rations (see chart) of Roman pottery and
coastal sites. There is evidence for pre- 'briquetage', the debris from salt manu-
historic salt-production at Mucking and facture. Where briquetage survives in
Fenn Creek (Woodham Ferrers) in Essex, identifiable fragments, it appears to be
but the best evidence is from the late of large vessels in which salt was dried
Iron Age and Roman period when over out or various pieces of clay rods, props
300 salt-making sites are known from and bars which might have supported
Key
Essex alone. These sites are called 'red the clay vessels over the fire. One such
hills', because they survive to this day as fragment from Wigborough was the 'fire • Roman pottery The fieldwalking
low red mounds at approximately high bar' illustrated above. • Roman tile was done with
water mark. • briquetage the help of the
Several test-trenches were then cut over Stoke-by-
These curious sites have attracted the area of surface finds (see picture). Nayland WEA
antiquarian and archaeological interest The removal of the ploughsoil revealed Fieldwalking
for some time. In days gone by, they the tell-tale red-coloured earth of two Group.
were thought to be Saxon or Danish separate red hills, and the outline of
potteries, Roman brickyards, or camp- what may have been clay-lined 'settling
sites used by queen Boudica or Alfred tanks' once used in the salt-making
the Great when he was hiding from the process. A geophysical survey by Aline
Danes. Organised research dates back and David Black for the Trust located
to 1879, but took on fresh impetus in distinct archaeological 'hot spots' over
1906 with the formation of the Red Hills the area of one of the red hills. Fired clay
Exploration Committee which dug at structures like hearths are particularly
various red hill sites in Langenhoe and susceptible to detection by magnet-
Hullbridge. In recent years, Kay de ometry, and it may be that the geo-
Brisay was the main motivating force in physical survey has located a number of
red hill research, digging sites in Maldon salt-drying hearths on this particular red
and Peldon. hill. When the sea wall is breached, the
site will be flooded, as it was from
When the Essex Wildlife Trust applied for
Roman times until the construction of
consent to create a wildlife sanctuary
the sea wall.
by breaking the sea wall at Great
Wigborough to allow managed retreat
of the coastline by the sea, this affected The work at Abbotts Hall Farm was
several red hill sites. The Trust was funded by the Essex Wildlife Trust.
Top left: briquetage fragment and reconstruction.
Top right: fieldwalking chart.
Above: trenching in field.
Left: the water feature - elsewhere at Abbotts Hall,
excavations for a freshwater lake uncovered wooden posts
stretching across an infilled channel which once drained
towards the estuary. The posts are oak, with sharpened points.
Almost a hundred were finally exposed, forming two parallel
lines about three metres apart. Most were left in place and
covered with a protective layer of clay to help preserve them
when the lake is filled. The few finds suggest that the structure
- perhaps a jetty or small bridge across the creek - might be
Roman, but as this is not certain, we are eagerly awaiting the
results of tree-ring analysis which will be carried out by the
Dendrochronology Department at Sheffield University.
7
New light on
Colchester
Castle
The installation of new
floodlights for the Castle
meant that over 200 metres of
trenches had to be dug for the
underground cabling. Being an
important archaeological site,
the trenches needed to be dug
by archaeologists and the
loose soil checked with a
metal detector.
A surprising discovery was the large Clearly there must have been a lot circa 1 700. This same level corresponds
amount of rubble and broken tile in of smoking in and around the castle to the top of the foundations of the
many of the trenches. The material must in the past. The men working on the chapel and other buildings on the south
largely relate to the late 17th century demolition of the castle must have side of the castle, showing that these
when John Wheeley was knocking down smoked incessantly as they broke up the must have been demolished to ground-
much of the Castle. It conjures up a walls and cleaned the stone and brick for level at the same time. None of this can
picture of a ruined and half-demolished reuse by chipping off the old mortar. be claimed to be especially interesting,
Castle surrounded by great heaps of but it all helps us to understand how the
However, the most useful outcome of
rubble. castle came to be in the state that it is
the excavation was the realisation that
today, and thus what it might have
Another striking feature of the work was the facing stones on the batter at the
looked like originally. PC
the large number of clay-pipe fragments base of the keep wall were removed in
found in the trenches. The shaft for the the late 17th century as part of the
lift dug inside the Castle in 1992 was just demolition works for the castle. We can
the same, and produced large numbers tell this because we found that they are The excavation was commissioned by
of bits of broken clay tobacco pipes. still intact below the ground-level of Colchester Museums.
Top: the castle at the floodlighting
ceremony.
Left: view of two parts of the site, from
the top of the castle and on the ground.
Right: excavators working by the castle
wall.
8