Monument record 726/4/27 - Roman Town Defences, 163-165 Watling Street

Archaeological evaluation at 163-165 Watling Street identified both the Roman town wall and ditch.

{1} Archaeological evaluation was undertaken prior to development. Trench 5 was placed across the projected line of the Roman town wall. Towards the northern end of the trench a footing comprising large pieces of edge-set limestone was uncovered, set within a matrix of fine sandy clay. The limestone was set at a slight angle, with their uppermost edges tipping eastwards. Above this lower layer was a second layer of smaller pieces of stone at an opposed angle to the lower layer ie. Tipping westwards. The northern part of the footing had been robbed, probably in antiquity, and the robber trench left only a remnant of pitched stone along the northern edge of the footing.
A construction trench could be seen, with steep, almost vertical sides, cut through layers of re-deposited natural, possibly upcast from the trench. To the rear of the wall there was no trace of the earthen bank observed elsewhere, possibly due to the thinness of the Roman deposits above the natural. To the front (south) of the wall a roughly circular pit was revealed, predating the wall. It was filled with large quantities of limestone rubble, possibly debris from the construction of the wall. It also contained sandy red brick/tile fragments dating to the C2nd. These are used elsewhere within Roman town walls in horizontal bands in the stonework, although it is not known whether they were used in this way here. Once backfilled, the area of the pit appears to have been levelled to form a berm between the town wall and its ditch, the northern edge of which was located at the south end of Trench 5.
On the west side of Trench 6 a single line of edge-set limestone from the north side of the town wall survived in-situ, though the rest of the wall had been robbed. The south side of the wall and the core did not survive at all, and the position of the outside (south) face of the wall had been destroyed by the insertion of a stone footing and its construction trench, probably of C19th date. To the north of the wall a layer of brown loam probably equates with that seen in other trenches on this site.
The north side of the Roman town wall was also picked up within Trench 7, below C19th layers. Here it comprised the same edge-set limestone as seen in Trenches 5 and 6, and although it too had been robbed, more of it has survived than in either of the other two trenches. The central core had been totally removed down to natural, and the position of the outside (south) face had been destroyed by a modern clay-lined feature. No trace of the earth bank behind the wall survived.
No clear date was established for the robbing of the town wall, although in Trench 5 a thin layer containing pottery dating to c.1100-1150 was stratigraphically earlier than the robber trench thus implying that it took place later than c.1150. Only Roman pottery was found within the robber trench itself.

A berm appears to have been created between the town wall and its ditch, the northern edge of the latter was located at the south end of Trench 5. A dark layer observed when the trench was first opened was a medieval layer dating to 1250-1400 which also filled the upper portion of the ditch, suggesting that at this period the ditch was still partially open. No later material was recovered implying that the ditch was fully backfilled at this time, and there was also no evidence in this section of later re-cutting of the ditch in the C17th. The only material recovered from the lower ditch levels were two sherds of pottery and a single fragment of box flue tile dating to the C2nd.
No evidence for the ditch was seen in Trench 6 or 7 as they did not extend far enough southwards.

<1> Prentice J., 2001, An Archaeological Evaluation at 163-165 Watling Street, Towcester, Northamptonshire, p.5-8 (checked) (Report). SNN100824.

Record last edited

Nov 29 2022 10:50AM