Revealing Roman Britain

Archaeology continues to add to our knowledge and understanding of Roman Britain. A number of recent online reports about archaeological investigations which indicate something of the range and variety of life in that period.

At Folkestone a villa, first excavated in 1924, opened up as a visitor site and subsequently reburied to protect it, has been re-investigated - in part because the cliff top site is in danger of falling into the sea. It has been suggested that this might well have been the residence of the commander of the Classis Britannia, the naval force that patrolled the Channel in the later Imperial period. 

The villa is discussed in an article from The Past at Rediscovering a Roman mosaic at Folkestone

A study involving the digging of six test trenches, each a metre square, on the site of the urban centre of Verulamium at St Albans has revealed considerable evidence of the life of the town in terms of small finds. It is indeed due to St Alban that the site of Verulamium is largely open ground rather than, as in the case of most Roman towns, buried beneath later periods of urban activity. The medieval town grew up adjacent to the abbey which is on the site of his martyrdom, outside the Roman city.

This series of test pits is reported upon by the Hertfordshire Mercury website at 'Remarkable' finds in St Albans park following archeology dig

The continuing excavations at Caistor St Edmund in Norfolk, the site of the regional tribal capital of Venta Icenorum, have found evidence around a temple complex of human activity and of an aqueduct for the shrine, which is a rather unusual aspect for a religious building. These finds are dated to the first decades or century of the town. The Past has a description of the discoveries from Current Archaeology at Caistor St Edmund: excavating an aqueduct in Roman Norfolk

In the Lake District the evidence for otherwise unrecorded fighting at the Roman fort at Ambleside on the shore of Windermere that has emerged from studying finds of different types of lead sling shot found there is set out in by The Past A battle in the mists of the Lake District? Ambleside Roman fort under attack

At Farndon in Cheshire on Deeside an excavation by local archaeologists has revealed evidence of what appears to have been a later Roman ironworking bloomery which, like a tile factory on the other bank of the river, appears to have utilised the Dee to transport materials and products. Cheshire Live has a report about the investigation at Roman remains discovered during ten-day Cheshire dig