More information : Normangate Field (name centred: TL 117978) was one of the major zones of extra-mural suburban and industrial development of the town of Durobrivae (TL 19 NW 1). It was occupied intensively throughout much of the Roman period and there are indications of prehistoric occupation. Air photographs reveal at least four well-marked settlement areas based on a network of roads branching off Ermine Street (RR 2c). See plan.
The buildings in the area were all closely packed and concerned with pottery and iron-working. (For potteries and plan, annotated with Artis' finds, see TL 19 NW 4). A number of other buildings are known from cropmarks and excavation, including at least six circular features and a small mausoleum.
The mausoleum (sited from location plan in (3) at TL 11569776) contained three burials, one a woman buried with gold and silver jewellery. The mausoleum is dated to the fourth century.
One of the circular structures (sited from plan in (3) at about TL 11649775) has been tentatively identified by S. G. Upex as a theatre; others are strongly suggestive of religious usage. One
of these (at TL 11389804) has a broad entrance to the south and a support for a bench inside. Adjoining it is a barn structure which has a portico, a tessellated floor and an apse added to it.
Excavations in 1975 in advance of a major sewer, located a small 2nd century, aisled barn together, with a number of enclosures and roads of all periods of the Roman occupation.
Vast quantities of Roman pottery and other finds (now mainly in Peterborough Museum) have been recovered from the whole area, and much pottery, brick, tile and limestone rubble can still be found on the surface. (1-4)
Numerous aerial photographs in the Historic England Archive record details of cropmarks of buried features in this area. A basic plan of the cropmarks was produced by RCHME (Peterborough New Town volume) in 1969 (Source 1) but many more aerial photographs have been taken subsequently. (5)
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