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Excavations at Alchester, 1926

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Christopher Hawkes
Christopher Hawkes
Affiliation:
Scholar of New College, Oxford
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Extract

Alchester is a flat site of some 26 acres, 11 miles from Oxford and 1½ from Bicester, in the parish of Wendlebury, on gravel over clay. Remains of a bank and ditch enclose it, forming approximately a square, the axis of which runs nearly N. 40 W. At the south-east corner is a mound 4 ft. 9 in. high, and remains of another at the north-east.

From south to north through the site passes the Roman road which comes from Dorchester over Shotover Hill and across Otmoor: it goes on past Bicester north by east towards Watling Street near Towcester. On entering Alchester this road deviates some thirty yards east from its direct course (with which the ramparts are aligned), to rejoin which at its exit on the north it runs askew across the site N. 10° W.—an unexplained peculiarity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , April 1927 , pp. 155 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1927

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References

page 155 note 1 See also Dunkin, Hundreds of Bullingdon and Pioughley, 1813, vol. ii, pp. 174–5; Blomfield, History of the Rural Deanery of Bicester, 1882, pp. 8 ff. (with map); and V. C. H. Oxfordshire, vol. ii, p. 320.

page 155 note 2 Cf. Belloc, The Road, p. 158.

page 155 note 3 For getting this taken I am indebted to Mr. O. G. S. Crawford.

page 156 note 1 Britannia, 1607,. p. 267.

page 156 note 2 Appended with other documents to Kennett's Parochial Antiquities.

page 156 note 3 Natural History of Oxfordshire, 1705, p. 340.

page 156 note 4 Itinerarium, i, p. 41.

page 156 note 5 Paper in Oxon. Arch. Soc. Records, apud Blomfield, op. cit., p. 11.

page 156 note 6 Vol. xii, p. 156.

page 156 note 7 He found walls 3 ft. high, ‘much pottery and rubbish’, decayed wood, iron, a human jaw, an ivory stylus, and 14 lb. of lead. South-east of Alchester he also found human remains: more were found later near by in constructing the railway.

page 156 note 8 Vol vi, p. 154.

page 156 note 9 Vol. xii, p. 156.

page 157 note 1 Archaeologia Oxonlensts (1892–5), p. 34. The excavation is further recorded in manuscript plans in the Haverfield Library, and in notes and an excellent bibliography of the site in the Manning MSS., all in the Ashmolean Museum.

page 158 note 1 Proc. Soc. Antiq., vol. xxi, p. 461.

page 158 note 2 J.R. S., vol. xv, pt. 2, p. 231.

page 162 note 1 Cf. Ward, Romano-British Buildings and Earthworks, pp. 145–7.

page 162 note 2 1911 Report, pp. 68 ff.

page 165 note 1 Mr. R. G. Collingwood suggests that there were internal wooden frames.

page 170 note 1 I am indebted to Dr. Oswald and Mr. Davies Pryce for notes on this piece and for an opinion to Mr. R. G. Collingwood.

page 172 note 1 I am indebted to Mr. Davies Pryce for a note on this piece.

page 175 note 1 I do not Include the moulded imitations of form 30 from Brecon (C. 80) and in the Devizes Museum (Brecon, fig. 103).

page 175 note 2 The Newstead type 19 (p. 247), barbotined to resemble ‘strong spiny leaves’, is probably, however, characteristically first century. The simple ‘bead-rustication’ seems to last the longest.

page 178 note 1 I owe this reference to Mr. E. T. Leeds.