St Helena School ‘amphitheatre’ opening event

Yesterday (29th September), St Helena School in Colchester held an opening event for their new ‘amphitheatre’. Trust archaeologist Laura Pooley represented the Trust at the event and also took finds from our fieldwork projects at the school for pupils and their guests to handle. We are delighted that the school is so interested in their archaeology, and is undertaking various projects inspired by it, including the ‘amphitheatre’ itself, the opening event and the static display at the event. The mini ‘amphitheatre’ has been built in the school’s courtyard with Heritage Lottery funding: it will be decorated with mosaics and used as a schoolroom space. The school is also planning to mark the layout of the largest Romano-Celtic temple on the ground, to install an information panel, and to link the site up with Colchester Castle Museum and the Trust’s Roman circus centre.

The archaeology of St Helena School is remarkable: it is built on the site of at least two Romano-Celtic temples, each within its own walled precinct, outside the Roman town wall, and associated with the site of the Late Iron Age/early Roman industrial and trading site at Sheepen. The area is an archaeological site of national importance. We think that the largest temple here was built in the late 1st/early 2nd century. It was square and was dedicated to the Roman god Jupiter. Jupiter was the most important Roman god of the Romans – the god of the sky, light, and the Roman empire, and he wielded the power of life and death… The site of this temple was excavated in 1935 ahead of the building of the school in 1938.

The Trust has undertaken a number of fieldwork projects at St Helena School over the past few years, during the school’s programme of improvements, because it stands in an area of such archaeological importance. Our most recent fieldwork at the school was in April 2016, preceded by an excavation and watching brief which we conducted there in October 2015-January 2016, test-pits which we excavated there in November 2015, and a watching brief which we conducted there in August-September 2015. During these projects, we uncovered some interesting evidence of the largest temple here. We uncovered areas of the gravel surface of its precinct, high-quality Roman roof-tiles, parts of the foundation of the north side of the outer precinct wall and a buttress, large pits which were probably associated with the temple complex, and Roman coins (CAT Reports 905, 916, etc).

We have not yet, of course, found any evidence of a Roman amphitheatre in Colchester…

Read more about the archaeology of St Helena School on this web-site – just use the search facility in the top right-hand corner of the web-page. An item about the ‘amphitheatre’, titled ‘Friends, Romans… Students: school unveils new amphitheatre after £50,000 boost’, was posted on the Colchester Daily Gazette web-site at www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/Friends_Romans_Students_school_unveils_new_amphitheatre on the 29th September.
All the Trust’s fieldwork reports are published online at http://cat.essex.ac.uk/ .

Well done and thanks to St Helena School!

The images show three snaps of the event and the ‘amphitheatre’ yesterday, with a plan of the Roman remains, the school and the Trust’s most recent fieldwork projects (from CAT Report 947). [Image to follow.]

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