Monument record 726/21 - Early Romano-British roadside settlement, north of Towcester

Evidence of extramural development along Watling Street north of the main town was found during archaeological investigation prior to development at the former Central Woolgrowers site.

{1} Small number of finds recovered during an extension to the Central Wool Growers Factory included eleven coins and a piece of glass.

{2} Archaeological evaluation identified two ditches aligned north to south. Six sherds of Roman pottery and one of Saxon pottery were found in one of the ditches. A human cremation burial dated to the 1st-2nd century AD was also found. The cremation burial was within a ceramic urn and had a diameter of 0.20m. The cremation burial was cleaned, recorded and left in situ. Sherds from the urn indicated a locally manufactured channel rim jar in a pale grey sandy fabric. The vessel probably dates to the late 1st or early 2nd century.

{3} Archaeological excavation of the former Central Woolgrowers site prior to development identified a small enclosure immediately beyond the Watling Street frontage (the original frontage has been destroyed by modern roadside landscaping). The impression in plan was of a property immediately to the rear of a frontage plot on Watling Street, perhaps one of several extending along the roadside. Within the enclosure lay a rectilinear arrangement of small, somewhat truncated gullies, but with sufficient regular alignment to suggest a possible structure. Evidence for the building was fairly tentative, but a group of narrow postholes, gully slots and patchy hollows indicated that some kind of structure was probably likely. The arrangement of the features indicated that the structure was probably fairly small and sub-rectangular, perhaps in the range of 7-8m long by 4-5m wide. The condition was very poor. A ditch on the east side of the building which drained into one of the enclosure ditches perhaps represents an eave drip gully.
The building was humble affair, probably constructed on timbe sill beams, or it may even have been a small yard structure such as a piggery.
The relatively early filling of the ditches, in terms of the Roman town, is probably more to do with the reconfiguration of land use rather than abandonment.

Two buried urns containing human cremated remains were seen. Cremation burial 1 was interred within a pottery vessel. The pit was no longer discernable, having been lost to truncation. The pottery fragments lay scattered amongst charcoal and burnt bone. It is likely that much of the bone deposit had been lost. The urn was a lid seated jar of the late 1st to 2nd century AD. Cremation burial 2 was also interred within a pottery vessel, into a sub-circular pit that was 0.2m wide by 0.1m deep. The top was truncated by modern levelling. The sides and base of the pit were rounded, with the broken vessel packed tightly against the edges. The urn was a globular jar with external burnished lattice decoration of the Hadrianic-Antonine period (early to mid- 2nd century AD).
Bone analysis concluded that one set of remains was of a late adolescent or adult, and the other was an adult male.

<1> Woodfield, C., 1988, Finds from Towcester, 1988 (Note). SNN111073.

<2> Clarke, J., 2009, An archaeological trial trench investigation at Central Woolgrowers Ltd, Old Greens Norton Road, Towcester, October 2009, p.3 (unchecked) (Report). SNN106550.

<3> Brown, J., 2012, Roman extramural settlement along the Watling Street, Towcester, Northamptonshire August 2011 (Report). SNN108040.

Record last edited

Jun 7 2023 9:48AM