Harrow in the Roman Period

HARROW IN THE ROMAN PERIOD Isobel Thompson SUMMARY Since 1999 several excavations have taken place, as a consequence of PPG16. These In 1999 the author undertook a review of all known have for the most part been on either side of Roman period sites and finds in the London Borough Watling Street, and have added a good deal of Harrow. Original sources for each discovery were to the available information. We may not yet examined, and a gazetteer compiled of both the genuine be able to answer some of the long-standing and the spurious. The purpose of this exercise was to questions about Brockley Hill and Sulloniacis, enable conclusions to be drawn on the nature of Roman but we are in a better position now to discuss Harrow from a sound knowledge base. Here it has been what was going on along the Roman highway updated, taking into account the work carried out in (Smith et al 2009). The opportunity has been the Borough during the last ten years. taken here to update the earlier account, and to make it more widely available. This is INTRODUCTION not because Roman Harrow as a whole was of any particular importance; as far as we know The original version of this account of it was a rural backwater, with the exception Roman remains in the London Borough of of the pottery factory on Brockley Hill and Harrow was written for a volume of essays the constant bustle of traffic along Watling produced by the Stanmore & Harrow Histor- Street. But examination and collation of ical Society to mark the millennium, and all the original written sources was a highly distributed free to the Borough’s schools and useful and revealing exercise, one which libraries with funding from the Millennium no doubt could be carried out with profit Festival Awards for All scheme (SHHS 2000). elsewhere. Re-evaluation in detail of what The purpose of the paper was to set out as we think we know is essential before we can accurately as possible what has been found, address such objectives as those set out in using the original sources, and to draw the Research Framework for London Archaeology some conclusions on the state of present (Museum of London 2002, 29—43). knowledge. This had not been done before. The only available recent account was a very THE SOURCES brief summary in the Victoria County History which on examination turned out to be less How the Roman period in Harrow has than reliable, and in any case did not include been understood derives from two different Brockley Hill. strands, archaeological evidence and The original paper included all Roman sites antiquarian speculation. The presence of and finds in the borough to 1999 (including remains where Watling Street tops the ridge a chronological list of archaeological discov- at Brockley Hill, on the northern periphery eries on Brockley Hill itself), with references of the London basin, has been known from and full bibliography. I also thought it the late 16th century onwards, but the important to identify and examine the local true nature of those remains has only been legends and fanciful stories, as these derive revealed by excavations in the later 20th from antiquarian speculation and have been century. All the older local histories and repeated ever since in local histories. guides are based on views rooted in 18th- 61 62 Isobel Thompson century romantic antiquarianism. Virtually remains of the period within the borough the only tools for study available to these away from Watling Street itself, and at present writers were topography, place names (the it does not look likely that this will greatly scientific study of which had not begun), change. But there is a scatter of unstratified and the very limited references to Britain in or residual finds spread across much of the the classical literature. Interpretations using borough, and more will be found. It is still these had to compensate for the lack of real possible that a single excavation will uncover data from the sites themselves. This was the in situ evidence of occupation. case right up to, and including, the writings of Sir Montagu Sharpe and Hugh Braun in HARROW AT THE TIME OF THE the earlier part of the 20th century, which ROMAN CONQUEST were used extensively in popular works on local history by Druett and others. Into the In AD 43 Harrow was far from the major centres 1950s the site on the summit of Brockley Hill of the Iron Age chieftains. To the south, there was assumed to be a small town, with streets was no London before c.AD 50. The nearest and houses, the successor of a ‘British’ place to Harrow of any importance was settlement which was itself entirely suppos- Verlamion, St Albans, 12 miles to the north, ition. The archaeological evidence which has where a few decades previously a chieftain been gathered since 1937 enables us to view had established a new focus of religious and Brockley Hill, and the rest of the borough, domestic settlement at a marshy crossing of very differently. It is easy now to dismiss the the river Ver (Niblett & Thompson 2005). Its earlier accounts as wishful thinking, but establishment there may have much to do the popular versions – which do not allow with the fact that the Bulbourne valley and facts, or lack of them, to get in the way of a the adjacent Ashridge estate in the Chilterns good story – tend to persist. It was Druett, constituted one of the largest and most a journalist, who said in print (1937, 4) that important sources of iron ore in Roman ‘when little can be stated definitely conjecture Britain. Extraction of the ore began in the becomes an interesting occupation’. Late Iron Age, and the route for its transport Excavation, of course, can provide masses to the major settlements at Welwyn and of new data, something that documentary Braughing, and on to Colchester, crossed the evidence cannot. Each piece of evidence river Ver at Verlamion. This west to north-east is subject to critical examination and later route and the places along it made up the revision; new work can do wonders for the axis of activity in the early 1st century. interpretation of what once seemed difficult. Also, the study of objects has made THE LONDON BASIN IN THE ROMAN tremendous progress in the last three or PERIOD four decades. When the excavations began at Brockley Hill only samian sherds and coins At present Late Iron Age presence in the were considered useful for dating. Since London basin (in great contrast to what was then work on the pottery of Roman Britain going on beyond it to the north) appears has led to a great increase in understanding sparse, except for some occupation on the of the site, and re-examination of all the river gravels. Greenwood (1997) summarises excavated finds can as a result shed new light what is known, and new sites have been on dating and interpretation. It is clear that found since. The foundation of London there is much that can still be done with itself, however, did not bring a massive the excavated archive (re-assessment of the change in this scattered settlement pattern. Brockley Hill pottery, for example: Seeley & It is not merely that archaeological sites have Thorogood 1994, 228). been destroyed without record by modern One of the key factors to remember is building; there does seem to be a genuine Harrow’s position, halfway between Londin- absence. In general, the known sites relate ium (London) and Verulamium (St Albans), to the better soils, and there are not many both large wealthy towns, and too far from of these in the London region. London either to be more than a rural backwater. Clay has always been avoided if there is an We may as well admit now that there are few alternative, and the Middlesex plain is ‘heavy Harrow in the Roman Period 63 land, difficult and expensive to drain and this. The villas closest to Harrow are a group work’ (Bird 1996, 217). ‘Currently available around Verulamium, with another at Moor information suggests that Iron Age and Park, Rickmansworth, on the alluvial soil Romano-British settlement around London along the river Colne. In the south-eastern was strongly influenced by the distribution parts of the province villas are generally of good soils. In particular the London Clay within 10 to 20km of a major town, with the was largely avoided’ (ibid, 220). No Roman exception of London, which had few villas field-systems are known in Harrow, although near it. The villas are very often closely linked some have been seen elsewhere; like the Iron with waterway systems, possibly for moving Age settlements, mostly on the gravels. bulky agricultural produce. Harrow is too far The Harrow area, on the London Clay, from the Colne valley and Verulamium for is likely to have been largely wooded. This villa estates to be expected. The likelihood of does not mean that it was uninhabited, large stretches of woodland need not in itself and unexploited. Roman London needed preclude a villa, but the evident lack of them large quantities of wood in its many forms, around London suggests instead that land for structural purposes, for fuel, furniture, may have been divided into estates owned objects large and small, boxes, crates and by men who lived in London itself, and used baskets. The enormous timbers used to local tenant workers. The research into how construct the Thames waterfront in its these ‘non-villa’ landscapes may have been various stages were oak, and suggested ‘the organised and run has not yet been done use of managed woodland with selective (Boyce 2007, 264).

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