HER 3857 AREA DESCRIPTION: - Group of Roman buildings at Olympus Park, Quedgeley. 1976 - Watching brief Gloucester to Hardwicke South M5 link road, Quedgeley. The watching brief identified a Roman settlement, badly damaged by ploughing. This included three buildings. Building 1 had two phases. In the first, post sockets and were covered by a deposit of stiff charcoal-saturated black loam containing some small gravel, occasional red sandstone and tegulae fragments. late 3rd to 4th century Roman pottery smithing slag including hearth lining and fragments of querns. Building 2 also had a first phase characterized by an industrial working layer. This contained a third century coin and bracelet. A later Building 3 was represented by patches of metalling and a beam slot. {Sourcework 684}. 1998 - Observations made during a machined plough soil stripping operation for future extended development into Home field, adjacent to the M5 Link Road. The initial development to the south, was recorded as site 18/1985. Roman masonry building: One side or end of a possible masonry structure, consisting of an oolite stone rubble footing 62 cm wide approximately 9 metres long, was associated with possible robbed down wall alignment extending at right angles from either end. The rubble fill of this feature is not unlike that of a French or rubble land drain. However, as no other such drains were observed this interpretation is here excluded. The building is located on slightly elevated ground towards the south end of Home Field. This was covered by an extensive undefined area of light metalling or hardstanding surface. The metalled area possibly post-dates the demolition of the Roman building, as it appeared to seal the robber trenches and presumably the machine exposed the wall footing. These points remain unproven in the brief. The metalled area was made up of graded Roman building materials with some Oolite gravel content, includes ooIite and lias stone, tegula and red sandstone tile fragments with loose tesserae and lumps of mortar. Note: The site of the above masonry structure lies west of the timber construction remains of Building 1 with contemporary similar metalIed or hard standing levels, recorded north of ditch 2 in site 28/1976. This and two other adjacent building sites presumably continued the occupation of this Roman complex after the masonry building was demolished. Further investigation into the development area was accepted by Ms. J. Wills, County Archaeologist Section, Shire Hall. A metal detector finds and plotting programme was undertaken by Messrs. John Smith, Robert and Richard Poole. Finds include 64 Roman coins mainly 3rd to 4th Century, Roman brooch, pin, finger ring, lead weights, pottery plugs, and riveted strips, lead off-cuts = 1.6 kilograms, pieces of lead splashings = 4.5 kilograms, 1 piece lead ore, bronze slag, etc. plus a quantity of unstratifed pottery. Medieval finds include a gilt annular brooch with raised pin and stud/sockets, leafshape seal , lyre buckle, horse trappings and pottery ranging from 12th Century to Post-Medieval. A small number of pre-historic flints were also recovered {Sourcework 16277}. 1988 - A site visit was undertaken by Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service on 23/05/1988 in connection with the construction of light industrial units. A linear scatter of shattered stone fragments were recorded and may be interpreted as a wall. Other visible features included shallow linear ditches which contained a darker fill. They may represent former field boundaries. {Source Work 484.} 1994 - Watching brief at Olympus Park, Quedgeley. In December 1994, during construction work on the Cobe development site at Olympus Park, large amounts of Roman building materials were observed by Patrick Garrod. Over the next few days, the Gloucester Archaeology team battled through rain and thick clay to make sense of the badly disturbed remains. A number of walls, an area with evidence for a hypocaust underfloor heating system and the remains of an opus signinum floor were located. Also excavated were many ditches, rubbish pits, a kiln or hearth, and a stone lined pit, perhaps a cess pit. Slowly, a picture emerged of a Roman settlement site, probably a small villa. The finds recovered, included masses of brick, tile, stone, tesserae, pottery, and animal bone. Many of the finds were of good quality, suggesting that the buildings were of high status. They also suggested that people had been living and working on the site for several hundred years; with the pottery dating from the 1st to 4th Centuries AD {Sourcework 4152}. |