More information : Area SO 533567. Roman coins and pottery found (TI) (4 sites). (1)
"Blackwardine, site of Roman settlement .... Coins of Augustus, Trajan and Constantine the Great are reported to have been found, also large quantities of Roman pottery, human and animal bones. When the Leominster-Bromyard railway. was made in 1881, the workmen found quantities of coins, a gold bracelet and ring, and many skeletons buried doubled up in a sitting posture at different depths, one was said to be 13' below the surface. 'A hypocaust or kiln was found, described as "like about 30 ovens full of ashes", built of worked stones which were broken up and used in a drain beside the rly or tipped up on the embankment. The workmen met with quantities of coarse red and yellow ware, also some of blue and black colour and a little fine red Samian, several querns, numerous bones, and cartloads of oyster shells.' The coin series included Agrippina, Vespasian, Crispus Caesar, Tetricus, Constantine I, Constantine Caesar, Constans, Honorius and Constantine III (?). Other finds included a ring of Kimmeridge shale and an amphora handle stamped QICSEG." (2)
As above. There was a local tradition of a "fortified Roman town of considerable size". Jonathan Williams placed the site of Bravonium here. (See SO 47 SW 1). (3)
(SO 533567) Romano - British Settlement (R) (site of). (4)
(SO 53335685) Rectangular enclosure visible as cropmarks. The western part of the enclosure is visible on Baker AP. 366. OS APs. show what appears to be the NE corner on the other side of the field boundary in the field centred SO 535568, and also cropmarks of other minor ditches and rectangular enclosures in the same field. (5)
Sestertius of Hadrian found at Bury Farm (SO 520565) and examined for Mr. E. Robinson, The Wharf, Leominster, in 1959. (6)
There are no extant remains of the settlement. The sestertius of Hadrian was found by Mr. Robinson while ploughing in the vicinity of SO 53445664 in July 1959. It is now in Hereford Museum. Acc No 7275. A coin of Constans was found by Mr. Lewis in June 1969 while ploughing in the area SO 53395681. It remains in his possession. (7)
Amateur archaeologists working at the Roman settlement found coins dating from AD 96 - 365, Roman roof tiles, painted wall plaster, an intact stone hypocaust, five rooms, a courtyard, and possibly a further hypocaust, one foot below the ground surface. (8)
A fragment of the rim of a pewter plate found in 1980 by Mr. Atwell carries a crudely incised graffito of a naked woman, and the letters C CNOVILL...S. The fragment is in the possession of the finder. (9)
Work continued in 1982 on the recording of archaeological features exposed in the sides of the railway cutting at Blackwardine. Preparatory work on the site prior to its use for rubbish disposal involved the removal of a 2m wide strip on each side of the cutting. Over 40 pits and ditches of Roman date were identified including an extremely large ditch about 4m deep which may have marked the western boundary of the settlement. (10)
Additional reference. (11)
HE 19 Listed as the possible site of a Roman villa. (12)
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