Some recent Roman ramblings...

It feels like I've been travelling non-stop for the last couple of weeks, and during this trekking I've been able to see a few Roman sites, both in the north west and in the Cotswolds.  Some visits were to re-acquaint myself with old friends, others to expand my horizons and see another little slice of our heritage.


In the finest tradition of Letters from Li Dongni, I'd therefore like to share a few thoughts and photos, in no particular order.


Senhouse Roman Museum, Maryport


The Senhouse Museum is one of those places that reminds you that fantastic archaeology isn't always found in picturesque locations.  With due apologies to the locals, the town of Maryport on the north west coast is far from a lovely place, but thankfully it is home to a museum with a very lovely Roman collection indeed - namely the Jupiter Optimus Maximus altars set up annually by the 1st Cohort of Spaniards.  These can claim to be the largest collection from any site in Britain, and their condition is almost perfect.  The museum has adopted as its emblem a boar (a symbol of the XX Legion), which it has sweetly named after the 1870 discoverer of a large haul of altars - Humphrey.

Of course, what Roman site worth its salt hasn't produced a few lucky phalluses?  Senhouse is thankfully up there with the best of them so here they are, just for you, including the famous 'snake stone'.

I always like to save the best until last, and without doubt my favourite object in the museum was this great little carving of a native 'horned deity'.

North Leigh Roman villa, Oxfordshire


This small but charming (and originally rather grand) villa was conveniently situated mere metres from the B&B we were staying in, but by odd coincidence I had been here before.  The star of the show is the tessellated pavement secured beneath a building for protection, which had been closed when I'd gone before.  By sheer lucky coincidence, on this occasion it was  being opened for the first time in almost a decade on the very day we visited. Aside from the nice mosaic survival, it also offered a very nice example of how the mosaic interacted with the walls of the room, particularly in the form of the tubuli (box flue tiles) which heated the walls and allowed the smoke from the hypocaust to be released.

Ravenglass Roman Bath house, Cumbria


The smallest of the sites I visited, and I dare say not the one that attracts the greatest hordes of tourists, though this might be because of the inadequate signage.  Still, despite this, the remains are what English Heritage describe as 'the tallest surviving in northern Roman Britain' (though their definition of 'northern' might differ from mine as I can think of a few sites with equally tall remains that are far from 'southern') and are nicely interpreted.

Birdoswald Roman fort, Hadrian's Wall


Birdoswald is one of the better known forts on Hadrian's Wall, and boasts one of the most complete sections of wall surviving nearby.  Although only around a quarter of the inside of the fort is exposed, the gates and walls give a good sense of scale, and the site museum is nicely executed, with a good balance between Roman history and the story of the discovery and investigation of the site over the last few hundred years.

Corinium Museum, Cirencester


Cirencester is a place that had been on my 'must visit' list for a while now, and the Corinium Museum was a major reason for that.  Having undergone a refurbishment a few years ago, I had been waiting to see how the new displays look and I'm very happy to say I wasn't disappointed.  The Roman collections are first rate, particularly the mosaics and the religious carvings, and the displays are thoughtful, clean and well laid out.

One particularly fine object is a bronze sculpture of Cupid, now sadly without wings.  Found in 1732 it is believed to have been part of a lamp.  Said to date from the mid 1st to mid 2nd Centuries, I still can't help thinking that the chubby face has more than a little of the 18th Century about it.

Cirencester Roman amphitheatre


Roman amphitheatres in Britain are fairly rare survivals - usually because they were of earth and timber construction and therefore easily destroyed in subsequent centuries.  Cirencester's fortunately survives, and is worth a stroll out from the town to visit.  Sadly, it seemed that when we visited, someone on two wheels had already been enjoying the arena's floor.

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The Roman amphitheatres of London and Lincoln

On a recent trip to London I was able to go and do something that I’d been promising myself I’d do for some time – see the site of the Roman amphitheatre.

Amphitheatres are of course one of the great emotive monuments of the classical world, and people never tire of hearing about the grisly acts that were carried out inside their walls, to the sounds of the Roman mob baying for blood.  Of course, not everything the person in the street believes happened is close to being true, but still…

Compared to the continent and north Africa where many amphitheatres survive to an impressive degree, in Britain they are rather more elusive finds. Only a handful have been conclusively identified, despite our belief that most major settlements would have had one.

Londinium’s amphitheatre was discovered as recently as 1988, and is now incorporated into the basement of the Guildhall Art Gallery.  Although I’m not focussing on the Gallery here, I will say that it is home to a small but very high quality art collection, beautifully displayed and well worth a visit.

The London amphitheatre was originally constructed in AD70 (coincidentally the same year that work began on the Colosseum in Rome), but the stone walls that survive are from the replacement built in the early 2^nd Century.  It is located very close to London’s Legionary fortress, suggesting that it played a role in both training and entertaining the soldiers as well as the public.  The excavations uncovered brightly coloured wall plaster, marble inlays and finely carved stonework, indicating that the amphitheatre was a prestige building, designed to be a source of pride for the local population, of whom it could seat over 5,000.

One thing I particularly liked about the exhibition was the way that the low light levels and ‘wireframe’ style graphics provide a sense of the layout of the complete structure without compromising the atmosphere.

This leads me on to an issue closer to home (well, closer for me anyway) which is the question of Lincoln’s Roman amphitheatre.  Despite the wealth of knowledge we have about Roman Lincoln, no evidence of an amphitheatre has yet been found.  The presence of the Legionary fortress and the subsequent founding of the Colonia place Lincoln among the most important of Romano-British settlements, and it is surely impossible that an amphitheatre didn’t exist - as settlements such as Chester, Caerleon, Silchester, Cirencester and others had.

The problem is that if the amphitheatre was only ever built in earth and timber, then archaeological traces of it will be ephemeral if they survive at all in the face of later disturbance.  The other examples mentioned above were almost all rebuilt in stone as the civilian settlements grew, as London’s was. If Lincoln's amphitheatre was never given such investment, there has never been a plausible theory as to why that should be the case.

As to where the amphitheatre might have been located, Roman military and urban planning was largely consistent so a position outside of the porta decumana (the western gateway into the upper city – located close to Lincoln Castle’s west gate) might be expected, perhaps where the Lawn complex now stands.

It remains one of the great mysteries of Roman Lincoln, but if London’s amphitheatre is anything to go by, there is still hope that it can be found, and it could become a fantastic addition to the city’s tangible heritage if we do.

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