the Trust starts excavation on second site at Williams & Griffin

On Friday (23rd May), the Trust started excavating our second site within the footprint of the Williams & Griffin store in the High Street at Colchester. We completed work on our first site here last week. The Trust’s excavation team started work on this second site by stripping the surface off, and then getting down to some excavation ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend.

On this site, we are expecting to excavate down right onto the line of the north-south Roman gravel street which was the main north-south street – the via principalis – in the Roman fortress. This became part of one of the north-south streets in the later Roman town, which was larger than the fortress. We know about this street because of evidence from previous investigations in the town centre: we uncovered quite a large part of the south end of the street during our major excavations at Culver Street in the 1980s. The Roman army invaded Britain in AD 43 and came to Camulodunum; the Twentieth Legion established a fortress here in circa AD 44. The original via principalis, therefore, dates from circa AD 44 and it was in use until the Boudican revolt in AD 60/1, after which the street was cleared of debris and brought back into use again, as were the other pre-Boudican streets in the town. On the Culver Street site, we found evidence showing that the via principalis was 60 pedes Monetales wide and that it included a footway and a timber drain along one side and, probably, included a footway and drain along each side.

During our excavation of the first site within the Williams & Griffin store, we found evidence of a Roman military building of the fortress. In fact, the Roman stratified layers on that site told the whole story of Roman Colchester, from the legionary fortress, and the subsequent colony for legionary veterans, to the Boudican revolt against the Roman occupation, and the Roman town which was rebuilt and continued in use for centuries, through the Roman period and beyond, with sequences of buildings.

So, when you’re next walking around in Colchester’s walled town centre, you should look down and visualise the centuries of archaeological evidence, with the complex urban stratigraphy – like layers in a cake – all under the ground beneath your feet…

Read more about the Roman north-south street in Colchester Archaeological Report 6 (Excavations at Culver Street, the Gilberd School, and miscellaneous sites in Colchester, 1971-85) and read the history of Roman Colchester at www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=21969 (chapter written by Trust director Philip).

The Trust’s excavations at the Williams & Griffin store are being funded by Fenwick Ltd.

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