#ThrowbackThursday – Kingswode Hoe School

On today’s #ThrowbackThursday we look back to a dig we undertook at the Kingswode Hoe School, which was carried out back in 2018!

After removing three temporary-classrooms to construct a new teaching building on site, CAT’s initial desk-assessment discovered that the area would likely be of archaeological importance as a result of it being positioned within the bounds of the Roman borders of Colchester (or Camulodunum as it was known at the time), as well as previous digs at the site having uncovered Bronze Age pits and a Roman trackway!

As a result of the dig, we found multi-period archaeological evidence ranging from the Late Iron Age/early Roman period to the post-medieval period! Our work uncovered a series of pits and three graves dated to the 1st century as well as two large post-medieval quarry pits, which had themselves uncovered a cremation burial, likely from the Roman period!

In one of the inhumation burials from the Late Iron Age/early Roman period, where a total of 267 human bones  were found! However in the other two, none remain. That being said, the base of a Gaulish Butt Beaker was found alongside four Roman iron nails in one grave, and a number of pottery sherds from the 1st century alongside a large part of a ceramic amphora stopper was found in the other.

If this of interest to you and you’d like to read more about it in greater detail, check out CAT report 1342 at: http://cat.essex.ac.uk/reports/CAT-report-1342.pdf

Written by Work Experience Student Felix