Hall Road, Copford - Archaeological Landscape
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Hall Road, Copford - Archaeological Landscape 1. Route(s) Hall Road, also known locally as Hall Lane, is an ancient track running south from the London Road (at TL933241) and dating back to at least the Roman period. It is possibly of earlier, Iron Age, origin. Its present line marks the edge of the Roman River Valley Conservation Zone. From the London Road, Hall Road takes a line southward and following, but generally just below, the 30m contour. Its route closely matches the curves of the Roman river but lies well above potential flood level, marking the junction of the river valley with Copford's northern plateau. Some 600m to the south it drops below the 25m line for a short distance in order to cross (at TL 932233) a small tributary brook of the Roman river flowing west from School Road (and originating further to the west). The road is not metalled from the crossing up to the boundary of the Copford Hall plantations. A short distance after the brook crossing, at the point where it again rises to the 25m contour, Hall Road splits. One part continues the line taken at the brook crossing as a footpath on Copford Plains to follow the Roman river, again more or less on the 30m contour, and running directly to Copford Church. The footpath then continues past Copford Church and then, still following the course of the Roman river, strikes south-easterly to Upper Hill Farm where it joins Fountains Lane at TL941221, close to an ancient river crossing in Fountain Field that continues as a hollow way through Gol Grove to meet Warren Lane at TL947222. The other part veers slightly to the west as a gravelled trackway that straightens to follow the line of the footpath some 200m to the west, and then after a short metalled stretch meets Church Road at TL933226. On the Ordnance Survey (first edition) map of 1875-6 the track swung back to rejoin the footpath at Copford Hall, and part of this route can still be seen within the eastern section of plantation, the final section largely having been obliterated by planting and landscaping in front of the hall. The metalled route southward swings around Copford Cricket Club (part of the Hall's grounds) and continues as Aldercar Road to meet Fountain's Lane at TL936219. At its southern end Aldercar Road is a hollow way, and therefore of considerable antiquty. 2. Date: Roman or earlier Hall Road, as both a metalled road and a footpath, still runs today as directly as the landscape and historical property boundary changes allow between two known Roman roads, linking the main Colchester-London road, known as Road 3 in Margary's 1967 analysis of Britain's Roman roads, and the Easthorpe spur of the Colchester-London road, that cuts east from approximately TL887210 to approach Colchester from the south (Margary's Road 320). It is Road 320 that runs through Gol Grove to meet Warren Lane at TL947222 (Davies and de Brisay 1980, 2). While its Roman antecedents are clear, Hall Road probably first developed as a track running between Iron Age routes. Just as our modern major road system is influenced by that of the Roman period, the major Roman routes followed the network of earlier, prehistoric, trade routes. Stane Street, Margary's Road 32, is at least of Iron Age date and predates Road 3 (Gascoyne and Radford 2013, 67). It ran from Iron Age Camulodunon to head to the the substantial settlement at Braughing in Hertfordshire, passing the smaller settlement at Stansted on the way, and then carried on to Verlamion, near modern St Albans. Stane Street more or less follows the line of the modern A120, just as the Colchester-London road more or less follows the line of the modern A12. Camulodunon (Camulodunum), Braughing and Verlamion (Verulamium) were all the sites of major Iron Age tribal centres that also functioned as emporia, linked by well-established trade routes. All later developed into Roman towns. The footpaths arguably mark the most ancient route of Hall Road, but archaeological fieldwork and the distribution of Roman finds on Copford Plains shows that the trackway served a Roman settlement just to the west of the footpath. Both routes are therefore likely to be contemporary, with the Copford Plains footpath representing the direct route between the Roman roads, and the trackway originating as a spur serving the Roman settlement. The trackway then developed as the more direct route towards the medieval and later village centre at Copford Green, while the footpath continued to serve as the most direct route for people living in the north of Copford parish to reach the church. 3. Evidence for Roman settlement on Hall Road Where Hall Road crosses Copford Plains, about halfway between Roads 3 and 320, Roman remains are concentrated between the 35m and 30m contours in the field to the west of the gravelled trackway, in an area defined by grid references TL931232 and TL932232 to the north, and TL931231 and TL932231 to the south. The spread of material is wider than the grid square defined above, but it has been the focus of a number of observations made over the last 50 or so years. Observation 1 Although known locally much earlier, the remains of Roman buildings on Copford Plains were formally noticed in December 1949 when G. W. Ridyard of the Ordnance Survey's Archaeological Branch recorded three distinct areas that produced Roman roof and flue tile fragments together with pottery of early Roman, later 1st-2nd century, date (Hull 1963, 123). Two of the three areas had been ploughed up that autumn for the first time in around 200 years. Observation 2 The fabric of Copford Church contains a considerable quantity of reused Roman tile that probably came from the building, or buildings on the Plains. Small fragments of tile found in the field lying between the trackway and the footpath may have been lost when the Roman building material was moved during the construction of the church in the Norman period. Observation 3 No Roman buildings have been recorded on aerial photographs of the Plains in the McMaster Collection, but as flue tiles were used to draw hot air from a hypocaust system up the walls of substantial buildings, it has generally been assumed, and is locally accepted as certain, that a villa lay in the area. Observation 4 Early in 1980 the local amateur Colchester Archaeological Group, led by G. M. R. Davies of Colchester and Essex Museum, field-walked substantial areas of the two fields flanking the gravelled trackway. They collected and recorded a substantial quantity of Roman finds, chiefly tile and pottery dating from the later 1st century AD to at least the end of the 3rd century. The tile again included both roof tile and hypocaust flue tile. These finds and the plan of their find-spots were deposited in Colchester and Essex Museum as Accession no. 118.80 (Davies and de Brisay 1980). It was this work that pointed to the concentration in the grid square defined above, with a marked fall off in finds below the 30m contour, where the land drops rapidly to the small valley of the tributary brook. Observation 5 Field-walking in autumn of 1987 by Colchester Sixth Form College archaeology students confirmed the same general concentration and date-range of Roman tile and pottery in the grid square defined above, although the work was hampered by taking place very soon after the Great Storm of that year, when the ground was very waterlogged. The finds were deposited in Colchester and Essex Museum. Observation 6 In 2002 D. and A. Black of Colchester Archaeological Group and Dr. T. Dennis of Essex University undertook a magnetometer survey of the grid square defined above, together with limited exploration of the immediate area of the field to the west of the trackway. No villa or other substantial building was found, but there was evidence of extended use of the area in the form of parallel, sometimes intercutting, ditches, some geometric but incomplete outlines that probably represent small buildings, a complex pattern of lines (perhaps paths between buildings), and other unstructured strong magnetic signals that may be pits of some kind (Black and Black 2003). The complex of lines extended into the plantation to the south of the field, and if a villa exists it may be within that woodland. Metal-dectector finds Thirty-two Roman items recovered by metal detectorists in Copford parish have been reported under the Portable Antiquities Scheme (Treasure Act 1996). Many were from fields to the west of School Road, but part of the lid of a copper-alloy jug and seventeen late Roman (3rd-4th century) coins came from the field to the west of the plantation at TL9323, suggesting that Roman land-use extended to the west of the main grid square. Summary Hall Road is of at least Roman origin, being part of a link between Roman Roads 3 and 320. A Roman settlement of some kind lay on Copford Plains, more or less at the midpoint of this link, with access to western and northern Colchester along Road 3 via Hall Road, and southern Colchester along the Easthorpe spur road, Road 320, via Aldercar Road or perhaps via the footpath running from Copford Plains to Gol Grove. Road 320 joins Road 321 on the approach to Colchester. The full extent of the Roman occupation on the Plains is obscured by woodland. It may be a linear village that developed at the midway point of the Roman road (Hall Road/Aldercar Road) linking Roads 3 and 320, a small farmstead, or a higher-status villa with ancillary buildings.