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Catalogued and Published, the Museum Archaeologists, Was Able to Join in Is Well Practised Having Just After School COIN HOARDS AT OLIVER'S ORCHARD To unearth a hoard of Roman coins metal detector. The telephones is the dream of every ploughman. On started ringing again when he Monday 9th May, 1983 Brian Wade was reported a further concentration of preparing a field at Olivers Orchard 80 coins in the upper ploughsoil for sweetcorn when he noticed some about two metres from the first bright blue-green objects in the hoard. As these could not have come plough soil. He jumped off the from it, further digging was tractor and picked up about 90 coins undertaken on Thursday and Friday and andi after marking the spot with a two more hoards discovered. Pot 3 stick, took the coins to Rupert containing 501 coins was almost Knowles, owner of the land. whole, but Pot 2 was badly broken and dispersed. It now transpires that Mark Davies, Assistant Curator at the latter had been two pots and that the Castle, came out immediately and there were about 1,350 coins confirmed that the coins were associated with them. antoniniani, dating from about AD 270. Kath Evans marshalled the On Tuesday 17th May, 1983, Rupert troops from the Colchester Knowles and his elder brother, Archaeological Group to help the Martin, lugged the whole hoard - Museum staff in the excavation. 6,036 coins - to the British Museum Brian's son, Gary Wade, who is a where they will be cleaned, member of the Colchester Young catalogued and published, The Museum Archaeologists, was able to join in is well practised having just after school. completed a similar hoard of 56,000 coins from Wiltshire. An area of two metres square was marked out and, after sieving and The pots are being restored by clearing the ploughsoil, a further Colchester Museum and it would be concentration of coins appeared nice to see them reunited with some exactly where expected - knowing the of the coins and on display to the direction of travel of the plough. public - either at the Castle or the The whole pot was excavated on the Roman River Centre at Olivers Tuesday and the coins carefully Orchard. counted by Martin Wynter of the Museum, and bagged up in sequence. 4,041 coins were found in this pot. Rupert Knowles On Wednesday the press and television were invited and Jenny Knowles spent all day carefully carrying the pot and coins to and from the field for the cameramen, This is the largest hoard of Roman That evening, to make sure no coins found to date in Colchester. coins had been missed, Pat Adkins was But it is more significant as the asked to scan the spoil with his first to have been excavated under Photograph by Martin Wynter archaeological conditions, thanks to third century, But, far from the the awareness and prompt action of area being abandoned, this hoard the finder, Brian Wade, and the suggests the presence two generations landowner, Rupert Knowles, later of at least one person of substance who was able to put aside The coins are all 'antoniniani' cash for another day. Its eventual and at first sight appear to be recovery was due to the great help mostly official issues of the and co-operation of all concerned. various emperors from Gallienus to Tetricus I, The silver content of similar coins reduces considerably Mark Davies during this period from about 27% to as little as 1%. Recent case history has excluded such hoards from Treasure Trove, but that decision rests with the coroner and the courts and will depend on an analytical report by the British Museum. All three deposits seem to have been made within a very short time, no later than c AD 273. The pots were buried in the natural sandy gravel, just below the modern plough. Best preserved was Pot 1, a flagon sealed with a lead bung. It had been placed upside down, presumably to facilitate recovery intact by the owner. * Opposite: plan of Gosbecks. The coin hoards were found in the There were no traces of any southern part of the site. Knowledge buildings or other features where about the nature of Gosbecks in late the hoard was found, though Iron Age and Roman times is extensive doubtless the spot would have been and derives mainly from cropmarks. related to some landmark like a These appear as the crops ripen and tree, or it was so many paces from a are clearest after a prolonged dry house or farm building. The site spell. The Gosbecks area was divided lies at the southern end of the up into fields of varying sizes Gosbecks area, within Kidman's Dyke linked by ditched trackways. The and remarkably close to the Roman complex was protected on the west by road running northeast to the a series of dykes. Later, in the colonia. Some 400 metres away are Roman period, a theatre and a large the theatre and temple, which have temple were built indicating that the been partly excavated. The theatre area was still important in was dismantled possibly early in the post-conquest times. HOW ROMAN COLCHESTER BEGAN One of the good things about being an during the Boudican revolt in AD 60/1 archaeologist is having the chance of over ten years after the evacuation discovering some fundamental fact of the fortress. Moreover indications that nobody was aware of before. I also emerged from the excavations have been lucky enough to experience that, at the time of the foundation the 'high' - the extraordinary of the new town, there had been feeling of elation - that accompanies considerable building operations these minor brainstorms on several including new streets and that these occasions. I do not mean simply the were on a slightly different act of finding say a mosaic or a alignment to the fortress. Careful particularly fine object - the study of the newly prepared town plan discoveries I refer to are made of Colchester revealed hidden in the usually not in the ground but on layout of its streets the ghost of paper and always by means not of the missing fortress. This took the hands but of brain cells! The form of a pattern of streets on the realisation that you have made the military alignment found at Lion Walk discovery you sought and have and consistent in area and design uncovered the necessary proof tends with fortresses known elsewhere. The to come in a rush and this has the fortress, now confirmed at Culver effect of heightening the sense of Street, lay under the western half of excitement that seems to accompany the later Roman town, such occasions, Of course, in terms of life generally, these discoveries Following the discovery of the are of miniscule consequence but in fortress and with the benefit of relation to our own little world and further excavations especially at the study of the past in Colchester Balkerne Lane and Culver Street, it and other historic towns they are of is now possible to chart the some real value. development of the Roman and later town at various stages. Of special What are these discoveries? The interest is the way in which the outstanding example was the discovery fortress was converted into a town. of the Colchester's fortress in Probably most of the military 1973. The work for this took almost buildings and streets were kept for a week when all the streets and reuse in the new settlement. Whilst buildings known at that time were this saved much effort in building carefully plotted on a large-scale new streets and houses, it meant that Ordnance Survey plan. Excavations at there was not enough room for the Lion Walk had just led to the large public buildings which the uncovering of parts of the southeast settlers wanted. To make the space, corner of what appeared to be the the surrounding bank and ditch which fortress. Also the excavations had protected the fortress was * The conversion of the fortress at Colchester (top) into the town seemed to suggest that some of the demolished and a new street grid was before the Boudican revolt (bottom). military buildings had survived the laid out on the eastern side of the transition from fortress to town town to incorporate the new public * OVERLEAF: The streets of Roman Colchester (c 150 and later) superimposed because they had been burnt down buildings. These included the temple on modern Colchester. The position of the fortress is indicated by a thick dashed line. Photograph by Aerofilms Limited. 7 key distances on the plan and these were converted into Roman feet. As a result it was possible to untangle the thought processes of the military planner. First he set out on his plan a series of strips 300 and 200 feet wide. He then marked out the northern and southern limits of the fortress and its main streets. Next he set out the main north-south minor streets by cutting these out of the 200 and 300 feet wide strips and then began to allocate plots for the individual buildings. The theoretical measurements are in some cases extremely close to the actual dimensions as taken from the Ordnance Survey plan and the theory of how the fortress plan was conceived seems to * Measurements of the fortress at Colchester. The actual measurements be very convincing. Mo doubt similar are in italics. The intended measurements are shown in bold around work on other fortress plans will the edge of the plan. show the same kind of pattern. of Claudius (the remains of which you because it is possible to tie down For obvious reasons, archaeology can see under Colchester Castle), a all archaeological facts to the is very object-orientated.
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