work starts on our Roman circus walkway!

On Monday, work started on the walkway on part of the site of the Roman circus, in the front garden of our building Roman Circus House. The work is being undertaken for the Trust by Roger and Dale. They are working on the walkway every day and, today (22nd January), they made a big breakthrough on the site. The preparatory work for the walkway involves clearing leaves off our excavation site, and laying a protective membrane over the whole area, including some of the exposed remains of the circus. Then the excavated material from the site – the spoilheap – is very carefully used to backfill the excavation. Roger and Dale are then carefully levelling the material at the correct level, which we have established by surveying the site and setting markers for them. The walkway will be constructed of a special kind of timber decking and special glass, along this part of the site of the circus, on one side of the seating-stand (cavea). The walkway will be at modern ground-level. Visitors to the Roman circus centre will be able to walk along the walkway and view part of the remains of the circus through glass panels in the decking. The remains of the circus will be preserved and protected in the ground.

The Colchester Roman circus was built in the early 2nd century AD and demolished about 150 years later, towards the end of the 3rd century. It was about 450 metres long. The foundations, internal wall, external wall and its buttresses were all built of stone, as were the starting-gates and the ceremonial archway. The seating stands were constructed of timber on top of an earthen bank. The timber which we are using for the walkway has been specially chosen for its colour. The dimensions of the walkway are based on the evidence which we have collected from our investigations around the site of the circus over the past few years. The walkway will be 8 metres long and 4 metres wide; the cavea was about 6 metres wide, including the foundations and excluding the buttresses. We have designed the walkway to follow the slight distortion in the plan of the circus – this end of the circus was slightly narrower than the other end. In 2014, we completed the reconstructed stumps of the starting-gates which we built in the garden next door, so we are doing well with our development of this end of the site of the circus for visitors.

We are getting ready for the re-opening of the circus centre and site to visitors, with the new walkway, at the end of March. We are constructing the walkway using two generous grants awarded to us by two local charities, the Essex Heritage Trust and the Hervey Benham Trust. We are very excited to see the start of the walkway!

The images show the site today, with Roger and Dale of Alexander Contracts hard at work: you can see Roman Circus House on the left, the excavated part of the circus in the middle and the spoilheap on the right; moving the spoil and backfilling the excavation; and a view of the site from one of our upstairs windows.

 

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