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The Roman Villa at Rivenhall, Essex: An Interim Report*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Warwick  and
Kirsty Rodwell
Warwick
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, Oxford
Kirsty Rodwell
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, Oxford
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Extract

Rivenhall lies 10 miles south-west of Colchester and a mile north of the main Roman road to London, in a sheltered valley adjacent to copious springs which feed a tributary stream of the river Blackwater (FIG. I). The subsoil geology is mainly boulder clay containing random gravel pockets; this is capped by brickearth in places. There are numerous prehistoric and Romano-British sites in the vicinity.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 4 , November 1973 , pp. 115 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Warwick and Kirsty Rodwell 1973. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 It has sometimes been wrongly identified as Canonium (Kelvedon), e.g. on the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain (1956). For a brief discussion see K. Gomer and W. Rodwell, ‘Excavations in the Kelvedon-Rivenhall Area, 1970-1’, Colchester Archaeological Group Bulletin, xv (1972), 13.

2 R.C.H.M. Essex iii (1922), 193.Google Scholar

3 C. Fox, Pattern and Purpose (1958), pl. 56N.

4 These items are in Chelmsford Museum.

5 VCH Essex iii (1963), 171.

6 At the time the site was not scheduled as an Ancient Monument and it is to the credit of a local archaeologist, Mr. H. J. D. Bennett, that he noticed the sewer construction-works approaching the villa and reported the fact.

7 Directed by W.J.R. with the following as Assistant Directors: K.A.R. (Fieldwork) and D. J. Fowler (Architecture). Thanks are due to B. J. Cartwright (site supervisor), P. Whiteley (technician) and Miss M. Fox (finds assistant). We are indebted to the Reverend D. Nash and Rivenhall Parochial Church Council for permission to excavate, and to members of Rivenhall Archaeological Committee for assistance in many ways.

8 Two socketed axes are in Colchester Museum and there is a bronze ‘cake’ in Chelmsford Museum.

9 Passed into private possession and now lost.

10 C. F. C. Hawkes and M. R. Hull, Camulodunum (1947).

11 Although the south wall is shown as conjectural on the plan its position can be inferred from recent observations of grave digging.

12 E.g. the width-ratio of rooms 6, 4 and 2 in Building 1 is 1 14: 2 and similarly the ratio of rooms 1, 7 and 8 in Building 2 is 1: 2: 1.

13 W. Hayes, Late Roman Pottery (1972), fig. 3A, form 6.1; it closely imitates the Gaulish sigillata form 36.

14 One sherd in the Dove Coll., Hayes form 42 (Guildhall Museum); another from the Walbrook (information from Mrs. J. Bird).

15 Cunliffe, B., Excavations at Fishbourne, ii (1971)Google Scholar, fig. 85, 32.1 and 32.2, where the sherds were not recognized for what they are: Hayes form 8.

16 There is a sherd of this fabric in the Corinium Museum.

17 Annals xiv, 31.

18 D. P. S. Peacock, ‘Roman Amphorae in Pre-Roman Britain’, The Iron Age and its Hill-Forts (1971), 161 f.

19 K. A. Rodwell, ‘Some rich early Romano-British Burials’ (forthcoming).

20 E.g. Kelvedon, Chelmsford, Billericay, Wickford and Canvey Island.

21 VCH Essex, iii, 172.

22 We are grateful to Miss V. I. Evison for examining and reporting upon these fragments in Appendix II.

23 We are grateful to Major J. G. S. Brinson for putting the material from the 1950–2 excavations at our disposal.

24 In Essex there is at present no evidence for its appearance before the last quarter of the fourth century at the earliest. It certainly continues well into the fifth century: cf. A. Brodribb, G. C., Hands, A. R. and Walker, D. R., Excavations at Shakenoak, iii (1972), 54 and 142.Google Scholar In a review of this report (Britannia iii, 376) P. D. C. Brown exposes a possible flaw in the argument for the continued occupation of the site through the sixth century, but his attempt to compress the fifth-century material to a date prior to 420, and, in particular, his explanation for the presence of shell-tempered pottery, in quantity, in the ditch (Site F) is less convincing. (In the interests of technical accuracy, a plea should be made for discrimination in the use of term ‘calcite-gritted’. Although frequently used to describe pottery, it is often incorrect, the tempering material being crushed shell, not calcite.)

25 Antiq. Journ. xi (1931), 123 f.

26 There may have been a Roman-Saxon co-existence at Kelvedon, where a fifth-century cemetery (Feering), which has also yielded late Roman burials, lies close to the town of Canonium but is separated from it by the river Blackwater.

27 W. J. and Rodwell, K. A., ‘Excavations at Rivenhall Church, Essex: An Interim Report’, Antiq. Journ. liii (1973).Google Scholar

28 We are grateful to Dr. J. N. L. Myres for examining the pottery and discussing it with us. Numbers in square brackets are those to be used in his forthcoming Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Pottery.

29 Cf. Albrectsen, E., Fynske Terhaldegrave iii (1968)Google Scholar, Taule 113a, 112d and 127d.

30 A. Genrich, Formenkreise und Stammesgruppen in Schleswig-Holstein (1954), Taf. 6D.

31 J. N. L. Myres, Anglo-Saxon Pottery and the Settlement of England (1969), 28 and fig. 12 (see especially No. 1977).

32 Blake, B. P., ‘An Anglo-Saxon Site at Hole Farm, Bulmer Tye, Essex’, Medieval Archaeology iii (1959), 282 f.Google Scholar and fig. 99.5. The date suggested may be too late.

33 E.g. compare the series of small oval ‘folds’ on the upper part of a biconical urn from Schleswig: Genrich, op. cit. (note 30), Taf. 23G; and the long narrow ‘folds’ on the lower part of a necked jar from Aalden: W. A. van Es, Wijster (1967), fig. 160.15.

34 For discussion of this term see Myres, op. cit. (note 31), 70 f.

35 Ibid., fig. 35.410.

36 D. B. Harden, ‘Glass vessels in Britain and Ireland, A.D. 400–1000’, Dark-Age Britain, ed. D. B. Harden, (1956), 140, pl. xvid; Evison, V. I., ‘Glass cone beakers of the Kempston type’, Journ. Glass Studies, xiv (1972), 48–66.Google Scholar

37 D. B. Harden, op. cit. (note 36), 142, pl. xvig.

38 Surrey Archaeol. Coll., xxxix (1931), pl. viii; V. I. Evison, op. cit. (note 36), figs. 2, 16.

39 D. B. Harden, op. cit. (note 36), pl. xvmb, fig. 25; V. I. Evison, op. cit. (note 36), fig. 6

40 Journ. Glass Studies, ix (1969), 134, no. 11; V. I. Evison, op. cit. (note 36), fig. 4.

41 The case for this is argued in V. I. Evison, op. cit.