Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:21:45.513Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Re-use of Roman Stone in the Reedham Area of East Norfolk: Intimations of a Possible ‘Lost’ Roman Fort

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

J.R.L. Allen ,
E.J. Rose  and
M.G. Fulford
J.R.L. Allen
Affiliation:
Postgraduate Research Institute for Sedimentology and Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, [email protected]
E.J. Rose
Affiliation:
Norfolk Landscape Archaeology
M.G. Fulford
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper explores the implications of re-used Roman building-stone for an apparently ‘lost’ site of possibly military significance in eastern Norfolk. Herein we revisit the low-lying peninsula (FIG. 1, A–B) between the marshy estuaries of the Bure and Yare where, in the parish church of St John the Baptist, Reedham, a grey-weathering quartzitic quartz sandstone (grey quartzite), suggested to be from ‘an exceptionally large Roman building near Reedham’, has apparently been exploited. Threefold grounds were cited at this first examination by one of the present writers. The stone is associated with abundant Roman brick and tile, and some blocks present chamfered edges and dressing marks ‘similar to those that occur on Roman monumental buildings’. Reportedly, the rock resembles stone used in the Roman shore fort at Brancaster on the North Norfolk coast, although no petrographie or mineralogical details are actually cited by Rose.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 34 , November 2003 , pp. 129 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © J.R.L. Allen, E.J. Rose and M.G. Fulford 2003. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, J.R.L., and Fulford, M.G. 1999: ‘Fort building and military supply along Britain's Eastern Channel and North Sea coasts: the late second and third centuries’, Britannia 30, 163–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, J.R.L., Fulford, M.G., and Pearson, A.F. 2001: ‘Branodunum on the Saxon Shore (North Norfolk): a local origin for the building material’, Britannia 32, 271–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boswell, P.G.H. 1915: ‘The stratigraphy and petrology of the Lower Eocene deposits of the north-eastern part of the London Basin’, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 71, 536–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boswell, P.G.H. 1927: ‘The geology of the country around Ipswich’, Mem. Geol. Surv. Gr. Br., LondonGoogle Scholar
Burnham, B.C., and Wacher, J. 1990: The Small Towns of Roman Britain, LondonGoogle Scholar
Cattermole, P., and Cotton, S. 1983: ‘Medieval parish church building in Norfolk’, Norfolk Archaeology 38, 235–79Google Scholar
Darling, M.J., with Gurney, S. 1993: Caister-on-Sea: Excavations by Charles Green 1951–1955, East Anglian Archaeology 60, DerehamGoogle Scholar
Davies, J.A. 1990–1991: ‘Excavations on the north wall, Caistor St Edmund, 1987–89’, Norfolk Archaeology 41(3), 325–37Google Scholar
Eaton, T. 2000: Plundering the Past, StroudGoogle Scholar
Gallois, R.W. 1994: ‘Geology of the country around Kings Lynn and The Wash’, Mem. Geol. Surv. Gr. Br., LondonGoogle Scholar
Gurney, D. 1996: ‘The “Saxon Shore” in Norfolk’, in Margeson, S., Ayers, B. and Heywood, S. (eds), A Festival of Norfolk Archaeology, Norwich, 30–9Google Scholar
Hinchliffe, H., and Green, C.S. 1985: Excavations at Brancaster 1974 and 1977, East Anglian Archaeology 23, DerehamGoogle Scholar
James, T.B. (ed.) 2001: ‘Brancaster, St Mary's church’, in ‘Medieval Britain and Ireland 2000’, Medieval Archaeology 45, 301Google Scholar
Knowles, A.K. 1977: ‘The Roman settlement at Brampton, Norfolk: interim report’, Britannia 8, 211–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxfield, V.A. (ed.) 1989: The Saxon Shore: a Handbook, ExeterGoogle Scholar
Pevsner, N., and Wilson, B. 2002: The Buildings of England. Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East, New Haven and LondonGoogle Scholar
Potter, J.F. 1998: ‘The distribution of silcretes in the churches of the London Basin’, Proc. Geol. Ass. 109, 289–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, E.J. 1994: ‘The church of Saint John the Baptist, Reedham, Norfolk: the re-use of Roman materials in a secondary context’, Journal British Archaeological Association 147, 1–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, E. 1993: A Gazetteer of Roman Villas in Britain, Leicester Archaeological Monograph 1, LeicesterGoogle Scholar
Shaw, G., and Wheeler, D. 1985: Statistical Techniques in Geography, ChichesterGoogle Scholar