evaluation at St Helena School in Colchester

Yesterday (10th April), the Trust undertook an archaeological evaluation at St Helena School at Sheepen Road in Colchester. The school stands between the River Colne and the walled town centre.

The school is built on the side of a site which is designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and so any groundworks within the school grounds must be preceded by archaeological investigation which is supervised by English Heritage. The site is of the important Late Iron Age and early Roman settlement of Sheepen. Extensive excavations there in the 1930s and smaller-scale work in 1970 and later produced evidence of workshops engaged in a range of industrial activities including metal-working, enamelling, pottery-making and leather-working. A late 1st-century temple was excavated by the Colchester Excavation Committee in 1935 on the site of the school; the outer ‘temenos’ wall of the temple precinct appears to lie underneath Sheepen Road. There have also been significant archaeological discoveries on the site of Colchester Institute, over the road from the school.

The Trust has undertaken a number of archaeological fieldwork projects at St Helena School (eg CAT Reports 349, 351, in our online archive at http://cat.essex.ac.uk) and in Sheepen.

The school was opened in 1938 and named after Colchester’s patron saint, St Helena. According to legend, St Helena was the daughter of King Coel, who had a connection with Colchester, and mother of Constantine the Great. The original 1938 buildings are still standing, but many other buildings have been added to the school since then, hence the archaeological projects!

The image shows the evaluation trench with a school building and the playing-field in the background.

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