More information : [Centred SP 57242025] Alchester ROMAN TOWN [GS] (Site of) (1)
"The main settlement is almost a square. Its sides, each about 350 yds long, were originally bounded by a rampart & ditch. The ditch is well preserved on the west only, where it still forms a field boundary; the rampart is easily distinguishable on the W & E, less easily on the S. where the place of the ditch was taken by Chesterton Brook. On the N both rampart & ditch have disappeared along the line of the road. Within the square two banks cross one another at right angles diametrically. One runs N-S, & occupies the line of the Ro. road from Watling Street to Dorchester. It takes a curious & unexplained Z bend near the southern rampart. The other runs E & W & continues outside the square eastward to the ford. Other subsidiary banks once existed within the town, of which some in the SW corner are still traceable, but those in the NE have disappeared in subsequent ploughing. At two corners, NE & SE, especially the latter, circular mounds are visible". The NE mound proved to be a tower, the SE is presumed so." If towers existed at the W corners their traces have now disappeared, but Stukeley (2) says that 'the country people
tell you in those places (i.e. the corners) were four towers to defend the city'.... The traces of buildings that Stukeley mentions in the meadows N. of the main settlement cannot now be seen .... An A/P taken by the O.S. in 1926 (print in Ashmolean Mus.) revealed the plan of a rectangular building SE of the town across the railway line [V.C.H.plan also shows a ditch - "A" to "B" - W of the town which it attributes to "Air photo 1926"]. R-B sherds can be picked up in most of the neighbouring fields." The first lit. ref to the site is Camden's (3) from which we can infer that, three centuries ago, there was little more to be seen on the site in the way of ruins than there is to-day. Stukeley's engraving (2) of 100 years later tells the same tale .... Hussey (4) thought, arguing from the sundry signs of foundations & noted by Brown & others in the meadows N & E of Alchester, that the town itself was a camp, with unenclosed civil settlements around it. He even suggests there may have been one as far away as Chesterton. Brown (5) made several exploratory excavns, the chief being in 1850, when he found a walled porticus in the NW angle of the main cross-streets: this is probably the same building excavated by Manning & Myres in 1892. He also mentions Ro. remains found east of Alchester in building the railway line in 1848; a cemetery of 28 skeletons was discovered at the same time just outside the SE corner of the town. In 1850 & 1856 (6) objects from Alchester were shown at meetings of the Brit.Arch.Assn. in London. They included Samian & other pottery, some stamped with makers' names, fragments of glass, a head of Diana in white clay, & other small objects. "In 1892 (7) T.L.Myres & Perry Manning proved that the defences on the E side of the town 'consisted of a bank of gravel faced with rubble'. At the NW angle of the main cross-streets they found 'foundations of walls bounding three sides of a court', which court appeared 'to be open to the south, & to be surrounded on the other sides by a corridor, interrupted in the middle of the N. side by a rectangular chamber.' The coins ranged from Drusus the Elder to Honorius. "In 1925 (8) trial tenches were made through the E. rampart & near the centre of the town... The E rampart proved to be about 22 ft wide.... In 1926 (9) a section was taken across the N-S street and its side ditches. The street surface was 15 ft wide & was bounded on each side by a steeply cambered slope leading to a V-shaped ditch. This street was probably laid out in the Claudian period or shortly after, for pre-Flavian pottery was found in the botton of one of the ditches. In 1927 (10) a trench driven across the eastern edge of the town revealed what was then thought to be an early defensive system inside the main ramparts, consisting of a gravel & clay bank behind two parellel ditches 2 1/2 ft apart. But the subsequent discovery (11) of similar ditches 20 ft. apart at the NE corner & of another ditch running into these (12) makes it clear that these ditches were only drainage works, & we may assume that the first rampart is the gravel one, about 22-25 ft wide, which lay immediately outside [sic] the stone rampart-wall & of which a section was taken in 1928 (11). The ditch, 15 ft wide & about 2 ft deep, outside, & belonging to this rampart, yielded native & Samian pottery of mid-1st century
date." No pre-Claudian pottery found and "a coin of Tiberius (13) & a republican denarius of Pisa Frugi found in 1910 are quite likely to be survivals brought in by the Romans & lost many years after minting. "It appears therefore that Alchester was founded about the middle of the 1st cent. A.D. & was enclosed by a gravel rampart & ditch. Since remains of wattle-and-daub, but no stone foundations, have been found in the earliest levels, it must be assumed that the town was composed of timber buildings & wattle-and-daub huts. The post-holes & sleeper-beam trenches that would be visible on a drier site were obliterated in the damp conditions of Alchester [???]. About the turn of the century the wooden houses were replaced by stone-built houses & the gravel rampart backed [sic] by a stone rampart-wall. Stone buildings of this age have been found in the NW (7) & NE (9) angles of the central cross-streets, & also inside the NE corner (11). The stone rampart-wall was reinforced, presumably at each corner, by an internal tower of stone. The foundations of that the NE corner were examined in 1927-28 (10,11) but were very fragmentary, & its plan could not be ascertained. On the N. side of the E. gate foundations of what may have been an internal angle-turret built of concrete were found in 1927 (10), but the remains were not completely uncovered & the interpretation of them is not certain. The stone rampart-wall itself was about 9 ft wide in its foundation-courses (12)(15), the stones of which were set on edge & slightly tilted. Nothing but foundations remained, except for one or two roughly squared single stones laid horizontally in cement upon them. That all these works date from the time of Hadrian is suggested by the pottery found in the buildings in the centre of the town (13) & in the stratum between the foundations of the NE corner tower & the underlying 1st-cent ditches (11). After Hadrian's time no drastic refashioning of the defences seems to have taken place, but ... it is clear that there was much rebuilding & replanning of the houses during the late 2nd & 3rd centuries .... To judge from the evidence of coins & pottery, there can have been no diminution of the intensity of occupation up to the end of the 4th century, yet no considerable house foundations of this late period are known .... Road-metalling of this period was laid bare in 1927 (10) at the junction of the E.W street with the street which skirted the east wall on the inside." The latest coins are of Honorius & Arcadius - no 5th cent barbarous imitations. "That its buildings were robbed by Bishop Birinus in the 7th cent. to provide building stone for his new foundation of Birincester has now become an integral part of antiquarian tradition" but there is no real evidence to connect Birinus with Bicester. The derivation of the name Alchester is uncertain. Plans & ills. (20-21)
"At Alchester... Crop marks establish that the main N & S street ran straight through the town in line with the road from the S (the Z-shaped bend... near the S rampart is formed of plough ridges & not by the Ro. road). There are two parallel E-W streets. Within the rectangular insulae so formed are foundations of buildings. A square structure W. of the main street near the site excavated in 1892 looks like a temple. A little to the S. this street is lined with rectangular buildings that might be houses or shops. Further to the W., near the middle of this insula, is a small circular building. Other buildings stand beside the E-W street, so it appears that the town was equipped to some considerable extent with stone buildings." Site heavily ploughed & very wet. (22)
The main Roman settlement falls within two fields The northern field is ploughed - as it has regularly been for many years - the southern field is permanent pasture.
The southern field is overlaid by ridge and furrow and the only visible Roman features are the east rampart and a possible fragment of the road from the south.
Surface features in the northern field have been so spread by ploughing that they are no longer surveyable, However, two intersecting roads and the east rampart are indicated by broad bands of limestone. These features show very clearly on A.Ps (23), as does the continuation of the road between the east rampart and the railway, although this is not visible on the ground. There is a very dense spread of Roman material - brick, tile, Samian coarse wares - on the surface west of the east rampart in this field.
David Watts, 3 Manchester Terrace, Bicester, has a large quantity of 2nd c. pottery from drainage trenches dug along the boundaries of fields immediately to the north-east of the settlement (Centred at SP 573205 and SP 574204) in 1963-4.
Resurveyed at 1/2500 (24)
SP 572202: Alchester Roman town, scheduled. (see illustration card).
(25-26)
Additional reference. (27)
An RCHME 1:2500 scale, level 3 air photo interpretation project (Event UID 932842) was carried out on this monument in November 1990. The area of the interior of the town was not covered as this had only recently been published in an article in Britannia (28a) which included a plot of features visible on aerial photographs. However, examination of early RAF vertical cover of the site revealled traces of a bank running north-south just to the west of "The Castle" (SP 52 SE 5). This bank also appears to follow a gentle curve through 90 degrees before reaching the modern field boundary to the north (SP 56912037). To the south, aligned on the north-south bank, and the mirror image of the northern turn is a feature visible as a faint bank on the RAF verticals and as a double ditch on the 1990 specialist cover (SP 56922015). The form, straight sides with rounded corners, is suggestive of Roman military features, but in the absence of any other evidence it is difficult to make any firm interpretation. The archive created by this project (Collection UID 932889) is held by the RCHME. (28)
An RCHME 1:2500 scale air photo interpretation project was carried out in August-October 1998 in order to produce an accurate plan of the Roman town centre at Alchester. Details of the defensive banks and walls, metalled roads and streets, wall footings and robber trenches of buildings, areas of paving and the debris of collapsed buildings were recorded. The Alchester town plan was primarily based on NMR photographs taken on 16 July 1996. (29-30)
The bank and ditch feature to the west of "The Castle" (SP 56912037-SP 56922015) mentioned in authority 28 appears to be roughly aligned on one of the roads within the town. A similar bank with a rounded 90 degree corner was recorded to the east of Alchester at SP 57552018, also aligned on one of the town's internal streets. The shape of these banks is suggestive of Roman military features, and their apparent alignment on Alchester's street pattern may strengthen this impression.
Elements of the town's street pattern extend beyond the ramparts to the west (SP 5602021) and to the east (SP 57652028). Banks on the same E-W alignment (SP 57002045 and SP 56652021) may also be associated with the Roman town. (31-32) |