Tour of the Marcham/Frilford Excavations 2010

2010 is the tenth and penultimate year of excavations by Oxford University at the Marcham/Frilford site.  The site has been visited and reported on by the Friends of the Ridgeway each year except 2007, the year of the floods, since  2002. On  21st June 2010, 30 people joined the Friends’ group to be shown round the site by  Prof Chris Gosden,   co-Director of the project.

Chris started by reminding us of the history and background of the site.  The archaeology of the site spans prehistoric, Roman and Saxon periods.   Late Roman and Saxon cemeteries were excavated in the late 19th century to the north of the site, and in 1890 Sir Arthur Evans  discovered a Roman villa..  In the 1930s, Bradford and Goodchild excavated a Romano-British temple and rotund in the garden of the former Noah’s Ark pub.  Beneath the rotunda they  discovered an Iron Age  ring-shaped ditch. .

The site is an unusual one because of the long period of occupation from Iron Age to late Roman and Anglo-Saxon, giving rise to the speculation that the majority of the Romano-British people living on the site were descendants of Iron Age settlers.  However, the continuity has been found to be largely  through religious and ritualistic activities rather than domestic.  The tenemos, the walled enclosure around the temple, contained small workshops, some with furnaces for metalworking, and quantities of objects such as glass, pottery, copper rings and coins, as well as oyster shells and animal bones, have been found.

To the east of the temple a  large  4th century building, which might have been a Roman church, has been excavated.    As there are very few Roman churches in England for comparison, no firm conclusions can be drawn.

Throughout the current project, great interest has centred on the circular arena in Trendles Field.  Excavations were completed in 2009 and it is now believed to have been a semi-amphitheatre, a cross between an amphitheatre and a theatre, commonly found in Gaul. Forty metres in diameter,  it has a circular stone wall, surrounded by an earth viewing bank which does not completely  encircle the arena.

It has a large entrance to the west and a smaller entrance to the east.  On the south side there is a   small platform, or the “Royal Box", which may have held a statue.   The most puzzling feature was a north-south drain leading from  the arena, giving rise at one stage to the suggestion that the building was a sacred pool.  The exact source of the drain was not known until it was finally uncovered this year when trench 40, near the river Ock to the south, was re-opened.

As Chris pointed out, this has been  one of the driest summers to date.   In previous years, their work in the semi-amphitheatre  and elsewhere on the site  has been hampered by wet weather and flooding.

A new trench opened  in Trendles Field  this year  has revealed a series of pits, one with the body of a man buried upright, and others containing  the bones of various animals  and birds of prey.  This points to another building used for ritual purposes, not domestic use.

In a trench thought to have been a roundhouse, a complete, undamaged writing tablet had been found the previous day,   and it was exciting to be shown on site finds which had been dug up that day.  We were able to examine shards of wood and a leaf from a tree, preserved whole and perfect for 2000 years!

Excavation of the site has uncovered evidence of continuous ritualistic activity.  The temple and semi-amphitheatre were places to visit, perhaps from nearby villages and towns, now known as Wantage and Abingdon.

The site visit was followed by lunch at the Eyston Arms in East Hendred, organised by the VWH Local Group.  14 people enjoyed an excellent lunch in this charming old pub, two of them being new members  who had joined that morning.  Group chairman Roger Griffin then led a circular walk through open countryside via the Ridgeway.  The route skirted land formerly occupied by Harwell laboratories, turned right along  a broad grassy track, then left for a steep climb up a road to the Ridgeway.  A short way along, with Scutchamer Knob on our left, we turned off  right and down to Ginge village.  Then along a broad meadow with Ginge Brook below us on the left.  We reached the outskirts of West Hendred  and once past the Church, took a track leading us back to East Hendred and our cars.

Anna Hanslip