Cornwall Archaeological Society Newsletter 152 Feb 2020

Newsletter 152 February 2020 Registered Charity No.1055654 After a very sunny CAS walk, the skies lower and a chill wind springs up at the last venue on Sancreed Beacon. Photograph SW Fletcher From the President conference was the brainchild of our past President, Henrietta Quinnell, and Andy Jones of the Cornwall Archaeological Unit, and brought together excellent speakers from the south west The calendar may be an artificial construct, but there is still a and beyond. The symposium was a sell-out, which is a strong sense of relief and renewal to be starting a fresh decade. endorsement of the strength of interest in archaeology in our Change seems to come about even region. more quickly these days, and people's expectations change and Jenny Moore is stepping down as Lectures Secretary at the increase as well, so it is going to be next AGM, and will be replaced by a small team of organisers an interesting challenge to ensure led by Andy Jones, and joined, I am delighted to report, by Dr that the CAS continues to meet John Riley, a relative newcomer to Cornwall, who has kindly people's expectations in terms of offered to organise a couple of talks in Penzance, which I communication, information and know members from West Penwith will welcome. participation. A development which has dismayed many of us is the Since our last Newsletter in October announcement that the Royal Cornwall Museum is obliged to our main focus has been on our close from January this year for eight months in order to carry lecture programme, which has been rolled out successfully in out repairs to the roof and re-structure the staffing of the Liskeard and Truro, thanks to the hard work and efficiency of museum. Most of the curators and ancillary staff have been Jenny Moore, our Lectures Officer and her helpers, except for made redundant except for the librarian and education officer. the lecture in Truro which unfortunately coincided with the We understand that owing to cuts to budgets locally and snap General Election! We also mounted an extremely nationally, finances need to be re-structured and new sources successful one day symposium on Romans in Cornwall and of funds sought, but we hope very much that our wonderful Devon in November, organised in conjunction with the Devon museum, 200 years old and the repository of most of Archaeological Society under the chairmanship of Dr. John Cornwall's most important artefacts, will not emerge Salvatore and held at the Eliott Hotel in Liskeard. The Subscriptions are now due - please see details on page 11 1 diminished from this process. However, we are glad to be F is backwards). The monogram is 18cm in height and 11cm able to report that we will continue to be able to hold our Truro wide at the base of the R. The two horizontal extensions of meetings in the museum building even though it is closed to the F are 8cm and 3cm respectively. The photograph shows it the public. If there is anything that members can do to support enhanced with sand. the museum, which is seeking volunteers, please do so. The style of the monogram would fit within the mid- 16th A final reminder, please note that because of a change in the century. However, the stone cannot be in its original position availability of the speaker the AGM is now to be held on 4th as the monogram needs to be read from ‘outside’ the April 2020, not the 28 March as previously indicated. I look structure. This suggests that the stone was re-used, perhaps forward to seeing many of you then, and meanwhile a very in some remodelling of the blockhouse in the 17th century, but happy New Year. where within the fortification it might originally have been sited remains a mystery, as does the identity of the person whose Caroline Dudley initials were F R. Reference Bowden, M & Brodie, A (2011) Defending Scilly (English Inscribed monogram found at Dover Heritage, Swindon) Fort (The Old Blockhouse), Tresco, Editor note - this note was sent to me during the summer but I Isles of Scilly missed it out of the October Newsletter. Tom Greeves Cornwall and Devon Archaeological Societies Joint Symposium 2019 The Symposium took place at the Eliot House Hotel, Liskeard, on November 16th 2019 entitled ‘The South West Landscape from the Late Iron Age until the 5th Century AD’ and was fully booked with 130 members of the two Societies present. Eight speakers presented aspects of the two counties during the Roman period as part of a continuum of occupation. The impact of the Roman army was assessed by John Salvatore. Military occupation of the South West lasted from c AD50/55 to c AD85, although the Legion at Exeter, a fortress built to be permanent, departed c AD75. New military sites in Dover Fort monogram Photograph T Greeves Devon continue to be discovered, especially at the North Tawton complex on the river Taw, and in the ‘Exeter Corridor’ linking the fortress with a possible sea port at Topsham. Here The variety of structures with a ‘military’ connection on Scilly the St Loyes supply base had been erected above a Late Iron are second to none, ranging from possible defensive works of Age enclosure, possibly forcibly abandoned. Lidar research is the prehistoric period to sites associated with the Second revealing much of the Roman road system. In Cornwall three World War. On the east side of the island of Tresco the forts have now been located, Nanstallon, Restormel and dramatically situated blockhouse (SV 8975 1545) known as Calstock, all potentially supplied up rivers at high tide and with Dover Fort, on the south side of Old Grimsby harbour, was the possible links to mineral exploitation. Exeter developed into a scene of fighting and bloodshed in April 1651 during the Civil fully fledged Roman city with public baths by the end of the 1st War. However, the origins of much of the structure appear to century and a circuit of walls by the end of the 2nd century. lie in the late 1540s (Bowden & Brodie, 2011, 6-7). These Forts such as Okehampton were abandoned but probably not authors mention and illustrate ‘a strange flat stone’ which before the defences were infilled and useable buildings overhangs the north-west corner of the gun platform, just demolished. Roman military roads and bridges presumably inside the doorway. survived and the establishment of communication routes was perhaps the most visible legacy of the military period on the On 4 October 2009, my wife Elisabeth and I noticed that the landscape outside of Exeter, but the role of coastal top surface of this stone contained an inscription, but we were communication and supply particularly in Cornwall may have unable to examine it closely owing to the difficulty of accessing remained important. it. On a visit on 14 May 2019 we found a convenient new bench had been placed on the gun platform and this enabled Bill Horner continued the story of rural Devon, first considering us to look more closely at the inscription. the recently discovered vicus at Okehampton, the road side It resolves itself into a neat but weathered monogram, cut into town which developed from the fortlet at Pomeroy Wood the present top surface of the stone, quite centrally, and outside Honiton and the possible mansio at Woodbury, appears to be a combination of the capital letters F and R (the Axminster. There are still only a tiny number of villas, in the 2 Exe Valley and East Devon. Settlement was generally Roman Gwithian ceramic style is being increasingly concentrated in enclosures. The unenclosed houses found in recognised. The presentation used maps specially prepared the later Iron Age disappear although there are pits and corn by George Scott. dryers. Numerous enclosures are now known from aerial mapping and augmented by geophysics and can be grouped The complex rural settlement at Ipplepen south of Newton as single circuit, double and multiple circuits. About 60 now Abbot, first highlighted by the density of coins found by have some indications of Roman period settlement, with detectorists, has been the focus of just-completed research houses generally circular continuing the Iron Age tradition. excavation and was described by Stephen Rippon. Extensive Some recently and extensively excavated enclosures, such geophisics revealed a network of enclosures and other as that at Tews Lane, Fremington, and the sequence of features with settlement from the Middle Iron Age until the enclosures at Aller Cross south of Newton Abbot show 8th century AD. Different areas were used at different periods continuation from the Late Iron Age. Sometimes small but structures throughout were in the insular circular tradition, amounts of tile indicate possible nearby Roman style with some four post structures interpreted as granaries. A buildings. Roman road with several successive surfaces was constructed through the site, part of a suggested route from Exeter that may have continued onward to Totnes and westward. The Roman period settlement was probably a roadside ‘local centre’, with exchange and craft production resulting in much lost coinage and some unusual imported ceramics. A small rectangular palisade enclosure may have had a religious function. Neat rows of a probable Roman period cemetery have been located, with a later, Early Medieval, cemetery by the side of the Roman road: here use of imported limestone blocks ensured unusual bone preservation. Ongoing research will include consideration of the site in relation to early medieval territorial divisions. Map of excavated Roman period sites in Cornwall Henrietta Quinnell reviewed Cornish settlement.

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