On Thursday (18th June), English Heritage gave the Trust permission to excavate a site which abuts the grounds of the Officers’ Club in Colchester. Trust director Philip will be the archaeologist in charge of the excavation, and it is to be undertaken by volunteer excavators from the Colchester Archaeological Group (CAG). The site is part of the area of the Scheduled Ancient Monument of St John’s abbey, which is why we needed special permission to excavate there. However, this is a speculative investigation, and it is not the remains of St John’s abbey which we are looking for – but the site of a Roman amphitheatre!
The Trust has investigated a huge amount of archaeology in Colchester during the past 50 years and amassed a huge amount of data. We have also made some really remarkable discoveries, such as the site of the Roman fortress in the town centre, the Roman theatre next to the Temple of Claudius, the date of the Roman town wall, the Roman ‘Fenwick treasure’, and the site of the Roman circus itself. However, despite all the remarkable elements of Roman Colchester which the town has, and our discoveries, what we haven’t yet found is any evidence of an amphitheatre, although one would expect Colchester to have had one. So Trust director Philip has set up the excavation at the Officers’ Club to investigate an interesting area in their grounds. We have had our eye on the site for years as a potential site for an amphitheatre…
The site is part of the Flagstaff complex of the old garrison, which is currently being redeveloped. The site is to be preserved as an open space within the redevelopment, but now is the best time to investigate it, while we still have access to the site via the Officers’ Club. It is not far from the site of the Roman circus, and you would expect such a significant arena to be part of a public entertainment complex which included an amphitheatre. There are about twelve Roman amphitheatres in Britain. One was only discovered in 2011, at Aldborough in North Yorkshire, and a large outdoor Roman theatre was discovered at Faversham in Kent in 2013. The nearest known amphitheatre to Colchester is in London.
The Trust has conducted several archaeological projects at the Officers’ Club in recent years, and we expect to start this excavation in July. We will supervise the whole project and provide training and tuition to the volunteer excavators. We are very pleased that the CAG will be undertaking the excavation. We have no funding for the project, so we could not do it without them: they have also raised a grant to help pay for some of the costs of the project, for which we are grateful. We are also very grateful to Taylor Wimpey for giving us permission to excavate on their land, and to the Officers’ Club for allowing us access to the site and to club manager John Scarffe for his support and enthusiasm.
Visitors to the Roman circus centre will know that we very optimistically included an amphitheatre, on this site, in the digital 3d-modelled video of the circus and the surrounding area, which can be viewed at the circus centre. Philip thinks that we will be lucky to discover the remains of an amphitheatre here, as there is not much direct evidence to go on. But, even if there is no amphitheatre here, it is a rich archaeological site where we can expect to uncover further medieval remains of St John’s abbey, the post-medieval Lucas house, Roman burials and, perhaps, even a Roman temple. So we expect the excavation to produce interesting results and to be rewarding for everyone, whatever we discover…
The images show an engraving of the Colosseum in Rome (the largest amphitheatre) by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and part of the 3d-modelled video of the Roman circus, with the suggested amphitheatre in the background. The 3d-modelling was created by Roger Massey Ryan.
The featured image shows part of a map of Colchester, dating to 1746, including the mound within the St John’s abbey precinct (near the south-east corner): our investigation in July will be just to the north of the mound and we will conduct a contour survey of the mound.
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