Links

Camulodunum explored

The rebuilding of Colchester Garrison is providing an extraordinary opportunity to explore Iron Age and Roman Colchester in a way that has not been possible before. Over 200 hectares of land is to be redeveloped, all of it within the defences of the anciebt stronghold of Camulodunum. This is equivalent to about one-tenth of the whole settlement. An evaluation conducted in 2002 included a desktop study of existing records, geophysical survey, fieldwalking and a marathon 7 miles of trial- trenching. The evaluation produced evidence of activity stretching back to Neolithic times, but most heavily represented were fragments of trackways and field systems belonging to the late Iron Age and Roman periods. By 2003, the time had come to embark on substantial excavations to add detail to the picture. Three large areas were selected for an investigation, each chosen with a specific research aim.

Earlswood Way

The first to be examined was a ten thousand square metre site in a field next to Earlswood Way. This was selected because it was known to contain three ditched trackways and also stood just over 100 m away from the site of a Roman villa, which lay within the south-east corner of a neighbouring barracks. The `villa' was discovered during a watching brief on building works, which located the building's under-floor heating pit (hypocaust) and a small oven. The building, probably a farmhouse, seems to be of 2nd- century or later date, and may well have replaced an earlier less substantial structure. Stripping revealed a straight trackway which has been traced by aerial survey for 500 m to the east of the site. Ditches to either side of the major trackway belonged to two more tracks and a field boundary, all of which combined to form parts of five fields. This field pattern probably originated in the 1st century AD when it was most likely associated with a predecessor to the nearby farmstead building. It seems clear that the tracks were used as droves for the movement of stock throughout the field system and also to the rich flood-plain pastures of the rivers beyond. Stock management was highlighted in detail by the discovery of a probable pen or byre, also many stake and post-holes for fencing and a gate system at the junction of two droveways.

At one end of the site a small pit contained a cremation burial with four complete late Iron Age pots. Although this isolated grave was found on the route of a trackway, it is pre-Roman and was almost certainly there before the trackway came into use.

We were to find later graves in the fields adjoining the trackways. These were inhumations, where the body was buried intact. In one field a group of five Roman graves included two children. All five were simple burials, some containing the remains of wooden coffins but with no pots or indications of any other grave goods. In another field a pair of very shallow inhumations, one with a complete pot, belong to the 2nd century AD or later. Both groups are likely to have been inhabitants of the farm at different times in the Roman period.

Roman Way

The second area to be studied lay in a field next to Roman Way, 700 m to the east of the Earlswood Way site. A prime aim of the excavation here was to investigate a major early trackway which has been traced by air over several kilometres as it sweeps across the south-eastern part of Camulodunum. This trackway, which was in use up to at least the late 2nd century AD, was one of four routes to be found on this site. Three of them converged in a tangle of intercutting ditches worthy of spaghetti junction. Heavily worn by traffic, the ground at the intersection between the three needed gravel repairs in the early Roman period. Elsewhere, cremated remains were found at two spots, one of them an unusual late Bronze Age or early Iron Age burial in which pieces of pottery from several incomplete vessels appear to have been placed vertically in the pit.

Ypres Road

An outstanding discovery from the third of the garrison sites was a 1st century BC ditched enclosure with a central roundhouse. Approached from the east by a track, the roughly rectangular enclosure had an internal area of about 2000 square metres. Dominating the interior was a roundhouse approximately 12 metres in diameter,enclosed by a circular drainage gully. Such gullies were used to collect rainwater from the pitched thatched roof. Two concentric rings of post-holes represented structural supports for the roof, while evidence for wattle and daub wall construction was found in a nearby pit. The doorway is most likely to have been on the north-east side of the roundhouse, facing the eastern entrance of the enclosure. In the centre of the roundhouse was a shallow pit containing a pot holding the disturbed remains of a cremation. The vessel was of middle Iron Age type although its association with a cremation is more typical of the late Iron Age period.Following its abandonment, a trackway was cut through the site of the enclosure in a north-south direction. This later trackway was flanked by ditches and is of similar date to the trackways found 700m to the south on the Earlswood Way and Roman Way sites.

The excavations were commissioned by RMPA Services and the MInistry of Defence, and carried out by the Trust in conjunction with RPS Planning Transport and Environment.