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The Earthworks of Prae Wood: An Interim Account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

J. R. Hunn
J. R. Hunn
Affiliation:
Chendyne, Shootersway, Berkhamsted
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Extract

It is almost 50 years since the earthworks of Prae Wood (TL 122 068) SW of St Albans, Herts., were first examined by Sir Mortimer Wheeler. His publication (Wheeler and Wheeler 1936) only considered the northern half of the site (FIG. I). Recent survey of the Gorhambury estate and the environs of the Roman villa has revealed a more extensive system of the earthworks than that previously published, necessitating a re-appraisal of Wheeler's work. Wheeler's report considered Prae Wood as a native predecessor to Roman Verulamium and traced the development of the Belgic earthworks in Phase 2 and their subsequent abandonment in Phase 3. In this scheme, the first phase consisted of an inner dyke and Enclosure A, interpreted as broadly contemporary. The E side of the enclosure was formed by a N–S ditch approximately 65 m long and 4–5 m wide, at whose southern and northern ends were causeways.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 11 , November 1980 , pp. 21 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © J. R. Hunn 1980. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 R. E. M., and Wheeler, T. V., Verulamium: A Belgic and Two Roman Cities (Oxford, 1936).Google Scholar Society of Antiquaries of London Research Report No. xi.

2 Study of this heavily wooded area was based on the use of OS 1.2500 maps on to which results of fieldwork were added and subsequently as far as possible confirmed by aerial photographs. Available photographic coverage is confined to the S half of FIG. 2 as the N area was still covered by trees in 1957, when the photographs were taken.

3 In the collection of the Committee for Aerial Photography, University of Cambridge.

4 There is in Verulamium Museum an unpublished plan of the earthworks made in 1931 by an unknown hand which covers the area of FIG. 2 and differs in certain details.

5 Stead, I. M., Antiquity xliii (1969), 45–51.Google Scholar

6 I am grateful to Mr C. Saunders of the Verulamium Museum for permission to reproduce this information.

7 Wheeler's palisades could be ditches: palisade A is 2·5 m wide and 1·2 m deep, and may have been re-cut; palisade B is 2 m wide and 1·1 m deep.

8 Thomasson, A. J. and Avery, B. W., The Soils of Hertfordshire (1970), Agricultural Research Council.Google Scholar Special Survey No. 3.

9 The OS and Wheeler maps do not show Enclosure 101 as an earthwork.

10 Only the E side is recorded on the OS map although the other sides are clearly visible on the ground.

11 Benjamin Hares' map of 1634 in Herts R.O. Cat. Mk D/EV/P1. M. Davis' map of 1768 in Herts R.O. Cat. Mk D/EV/P2.

12 Herts. Record Office: Gorhambury Collection XI. 2.

13 O. Rackham, Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape (1976), 117.