Where Ben Hurwent wrongThe famous chariot race in the1959 Hollywood film Ben Hur ismisleading on several accountsnot least because the high-borntribune Messala and Ben Hurhimself, who though a Jew wasalso the adopted son of aRoman admiral, would neverhave been able to take part.Messala’s career and socialstatus would have been intatters, and whether he won orlost it would have been politicaldamaging to the Romans; if hewon it would have angered thelocals, if he lost they would havebeen all too happy!

The film shows a stone-builtcircus on the Roman patternmade famous by the CircusMaximus, but race-courses inthe east at that period werebased on the much simplerGreek hippodrome, a large flatspace with turning posts. BenHur has nine teams racing, butRoman-style racing was at thatperiod always based on the fourfactions, Blues, Greens, Redsand Whites, so there might befour, eight or twelve teams, butnever nine. This was not

necessarily so in the east, whereprivately-owned teams might bedriven by hired-in professionalcharioteers, much likehorse-racing today, but then it isnot an eastern-style race that isshown in the film.

The horses driven by Ben Hurare supposedly Arabs acquiredfrom a Bedouin sheikh, but theBedouin rode camels until manyhundreds of years later, andArab horses had not beendeveloped then. The best circushorses came from North Africaand Spain, and were probablymost like today’s Andalusiansand Lusitanos; some successfulanimals also came fromCappadocia in Asia Minor, fromGreece and from Sicily.However, by chance the realhorses driven in the film werefairly similar to the race horsesof the period as they wereLipizzaners from Yugoslavia, abreed much cross-bred with theancient Iberian strain fromSpain.

Of the nine teams starting therace in Ben Hur, six crash andare written off. However, aspecialist in Roman spectatorsports has studied the filmcarefully and noticed that four

teams pass the finishing line – amiracle! In the 1926 version ofthe film about a hundred died,but despite the crashes in 1959animal welfare was taken muchmore seriously and there wereno fatalities. The vicious axleblades used by Messala to cutthe wheel-spokes on the otherchariots are pure Hollywood andwould never have been allowedin a real race – the whole systemwas arranged so that all theentrants had an equal chance.

Finally, the chariots used in thefilm were completely wrong andmade the job of the horsesmuch more difficult. Instead of alightweight wood and leatheraffair, they were made of steeltubing and thick carved wood,more like the currus triumphalis(triumphal chariot) that was builtfor display rather than speed.They had an iron axle and steelfloor, weighing in total about 0.4of a metric tonne compared tothe 25-30 kilograms of a realRoman racing chariot. Inconsequence, the 1959 teamscould only manage to run a lapat a time, four times a day, withrests in between, whereas theRoman chariot teams ran sevenlaps in about 11 minutes.

A team of four horses shown on a pottery

jar from Colchester. Note the small low-set

wheels and the bound-up tails of the

horses. Colchester Archaeological Trust

would like to express its gratitude to the

Department of Prehistory and Europe at

The British Museum, who kindly allowed

the photograph to be reproduced here.

Eureka!A Roman

circus

The railwaycomes to

Colchester

Beeleigh Abbey

News ofexcavations in

Colchester

Beyond the wall:Osbourne street

quarter

£2. 95Issue no 18 2005

Colchester Archaeological Trust

Edited and layout by Philip Crummy.Cover David Ross.

Printed by PrintWright Ltd, Ipswich

© Colchester Archaeological Trust 2005

ISSN 0952-0988

The Colchester archaeologist magazine issupported by the Friends of ColchesterArchaeological Trust – see page 33.

The Colchester Archaeological Trust employs a team of archaeologists plussupporting field and other staff whose principal focus is the investigation,preservation, and promotion of the archaeological remains of Colchester. Theorganisation was founded in 1963 as the Colchester Excavation Committee,since when it has undertaken an extensive series of large excavations inColchester. Its various publications range from popular books and magazines(especially City of Victory and The Colchester Archaeologist) to academicpapers and monographs (especially Colchester Archaeological Reports and theJournal of the Colchester Archaeological Trust).

The Trust enjoys the status of registered archaeological organisation with theInstitute of Field Archaeologists. It is also a registered charity and a companylimited by guarantee.

The Director and chief archaeologist of the Trust is Philip Crummy. The chair-man is Mark Hassall of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, andthe company secretary is Nick Wickenden of Chelmsford and Essex Museum.

Front cover. Archaeologist Cat Bellholding the harness pendant from thesite of the circus.

Illustration of Ben Hur style chariot(and thus not archaeologicalllyaccurate) by Peter Froste.

If you are interested in following

archaeological discoveries in Colchester, then

why not consider joining the Friends of

the Colchester Archaeological Trust? The

subscription rates are modest, and include an

annual copy of The ColchesterArchaeologist magazine delivered to you as

soon as it is published. You can also join

tours of current sites and organised trips to

places of historical and archaeological

interest in the region.

The annual subscription rates:Family membership £6.00Adults and institutions £5.00Children and students £2.50

Further details can be obtained fromMaureen Jones, Friends of ColchesterArchaeological Trust, 5 Ashwin Avenue,Copford, Colchester, Essex CO6 1BS orwww.friends-of-cat.ndo.co.uk.

Friends of the Colchester Archaeological Trust

The team on the garrison excavation in January 2005.

Colchester Archaeological Trust12 Lexden Road,Colchester,Essex CO3 3NF

tel.: (01206) 541051tel./fax: (01206) 500124email: info@catuk.orgweb site: www.catuk.org

1

Eureka! A Roman circus! by Philip Crummy 2

As luck would have it by Nina Crummy 9

A special fee for the ferryman by Nina Crummy 10

The racing chariot by Nina Crummy 11

Race for victory by Nina Crummy 12

A day at the Circus Maximus by Nina Crummy 14

The price of fame by Nina Crummy 15

A first-hand account of a race in the 5th century by Nina Crummy 15

Running rings around the Area – Roman burials at the garrisonby Howard Brooks 16

Abbeyfield – a modern community in the makingby Taylor Woodrow 20

The railway comes to Colchester by Peter E Thompson 22

An unusual railway buff by James Fawn 24

Beyond the walls by Carl Crossan 26

Butchers in St Botolph’s Street by Philip J Wise 27

New arts centre by Carl Crossan 28

St Helena and Colchester’s Creation Myth by Tom Hodgson 29

White Canons and blacksmiths at Beeleigh Abbeyby Howard Brooks 30

Spoil heap by Kate Orr 32

Friends of the Colchester Archaeological Trust by Nina Crummy 33

Where Ben Hur went wrong by Nina Crummy back cover

contents

2

Of all the towns in Britainthat might have had aRoman circus, Colchesterwould be top of the list. Therecent discovery of sometantalising foundations tothe south of Colchestertown centre caused greatexcitement, becauseeverything about themappears to fit the bill.

Discovery

The first sight of the circus was in May2000 when a Roman foundation wasobserved by CAT in the sides of anarrow trench dug for electric cables forsome new lighting around the footballpitch in the north-west corner of AbbeyField. The find was carefully recorded atthe time, but its significance could notappreciated, because only a tinyfragment of foundation was exposed,and odd exposures of unattributablefoundations of this sort are notinfrequent in and around the centre ofColchester.

The next exposure was in 2002 whenanother short stretch was investigatedduring early archaeological work in apaddock near the Cavalry Barracks.Various trenches had been dug bymachine as part of a sampling processto look for significant archaeologicalremains that might need furtherinvestigation prior to the redevelop-ment of the area for housing. Again too

Eureka!A Roman circus!

____________________________

The archaeological excavations are

being undertaken by the Colchester

Archaeological Trust (P Crummy,

B Holloway, D Shimmin). The project is

being managed by RPS Planning,

Transport and Design (R Masefield,

K Whittaker, C Lequesne). The

investigations are being carried out on

behalf of Taylor Woodrow who are

funding the work.

3

little could be uncovered to make muchof it. However, as we shall see, full-scaleexcavation later on made all thedifference.

In 2004, two areas close to FlagstaffHouse on Circular Road North wereexcavated in quick succession. As luckwould have it, one site turned out toinclude part of the south side of thecircus, and the other the north. Theremains took the form a pair of parallelfoundations of unequal width. In bothcases, the wider of the two foundationshad square/rectangular projectionsalong one side showing that it had alsobeen buttressed. In terms of plan, onepair of foundations was the mirrorimage of the other, so that the narrowerwalls were to the inside of the circus andthe outer wall was buttressed externally.

The stone used in all four foundations isinteresting for various reasons. Firstly, itis greensand. Stone of this type doesoccur in other Roman buildings inColchester, but it is not the commonestmaterial. It came a poor second toseptaria, so the presence of greensandin both pairs of foundations providessome support to the view that they arelikely to belong to the same building.Furthermore, the use of greensand givesus dating evidence for the building. Thismaterial does not seem to have beenwidely used in the earliest days of theRoman town — it does not appear forexample in the town wall which isdatable to c AD 65-80. Thus itsappearance in the four foundationssuggests that the building is unlikely todate to before the late 1st century.Finally, much of the greensand was inthe form of little chips and splintersshowing it to be masons’ waste, left overfrom making neatly-squared-off blocksof stone. These chips therefore showthat the building, like the town wall, wasprobably of an ashlar construction(coursed inner and outer faces with arubble and mortar core). The faceswould probably have been made ofperhaps four courses of greensandblocks alternating with four courses ofbrick.

Thus the two pairs of foundationsresembled each other in compositionand plan, making it reasonable tospeculate that they were parts of thesame structure. At that stage it was hardto imagine what structure that might be.Various possibilities were consideredsuch as a temple precinct, but none ofthem seemed particularly convincing.

Then followed the excavation of someareas in the vicinity of the CavalryBarracks. Most of it was concentrated inplaces where the machine trenchinghad earlier revealed Roman burials (seepages 16-19), but there was one areawhich was designed mainly toinvestigate the foundation mentionedabove in the paddock. Not just onefoundation was uncovered, but twolooking in composition and plan just likethe two pairs found in the excavationsnear Flagstaff House to the east. Thenewly-uncovered foundations wereuncovered over a distance of c 75 mand, when carefully plotted on anlarge-scale Ordnance Survey map,turned out to align exactly with thesouthern pair of foundations nearFlagstaff House. The alignment wasimpressive, especially considering thatthe two areas were about 230 m apart.

Again it appeared to be the samestructure. But what a size! Apart fromthe weird shape, it would have been toobig for a temple precinct and it was hardto rationalise in terms of a defensivewall. Then the penny dropped – aRoman circus!

An examination of the plans of variouscircuses known abroad showed that thecircus is unlikely to have been muchlonger than the distance we had alreadytraced it over. Could we find an end?Fortunately it proved possible to squeezea few very narrow slit trenches inbetween some trees just west of themost westerly point we had traced thecircus in the riding paddock. Our luckwas in again, because we found theouter wall just starting to curve inwards.It was the beginning of what must be thesemicircular west end of the circus. This

Left. Foundations of the seating area onthe Cavalry Barracks site (Site J).

Right. Laura Pooley cleaning part of thefoundation of the outer wall of thecircus.

4

Excavating part of a buttressedcircus foundation in November2004. Site J East.

Excavating circus foundations andburials. July 2004. Site C1.

Tile cist excavated. May 2000.

Excavating cremationsat the Abbey Fieldbefore the constructionof an all-weathersports pitch. March2000.

Excavations in and aroundthe site of the circus

5

Roman ring-ditchburials and theremains of twodemolished WorldWar 2 air raidshelters.

Carefully lifting of a cremation pot in August 2004. Site C2.

Fragment of circusfoundation seen in awatching brief in May2000

St John’s Abbey wall.Built c 1100.

fortunate find left us with the convincingplan of a circus.

Roman circuses

Chariot racing was the most popular ofthe mass spectator sports in Romantimes. People flocked in their thousandsto watch famous charioteers risk life andlimb hurtling on light-weight chariotspulled at breakneck speed by teams ofhorses of various numbers. A day at theraces was not only a time for great thrillsand potentially lethal spills, but achance to meet up with friends and anopportunity to place some bets and gohome the richer for it.

Many, perhaps most, Roman townsmust have had a circus of some sort. Itneedn’t have been much – two posts ina flat field would have been enough.More important places though hadpurpose-made stone circuses where thesides of the arena were lined withpermanent seating set in tiers. Thesestructures ranged in size and complexityfrom the Circus Maximus in Rome whichwas capable of holding a staggering150,000 people (at least) to the moremodest, yet basically similar, structuressuch as the circus at Colchester. Thedifferences lie not so much in the size ofthe arenas, but in the size of the seatingareas. For example, the arena of theCircus Maximus measured c 79 x 580 mwhich, as we shall see, is not nearly thatmuch bigger than Colchester’s as thedifference in capacity might suggest.

There is more to the design of stonecircuses than might appear at first sight.They were carefully planned with twoprincipal aims in mind. One was thateach of the competitors should have anequal chance of winning regardless ofthe gate from which they started. Theother was that each of the spectatorsshould have as good as view as possibleof the arena and everything thathappened in it. Essentially there are fourelements which made up the circus: thetrack, the seating area, the centralbarrier and the starting gates. At oneend of the arena were the starting gates.There would have been twelve of these,each built in stone and fitted with an ironbarrier which would have been raisedmechanically to start off the race. Twoturning posts (metae) were placed in thearena and an elaborate barrier (spina)constructed between the two. Thebarrier would have included monumentsof various kinds and lap counters in theform of dolphins and eggs (see furtheron pages 12-13). Many of the grandestof the circuses not far from Egyptincluded obelisks relocated fromtemples from that country.

One of the turning posts was placed inthe centre of the semicircle forming oneend of the arena. The other one waslocated about two thirds along thelength of the arena, about 150 m or sofrom the starting gates. A white line was

drawn on the ground between this postand the arena wall to the right of thecharioteers. Each charioteer would havewanted to be the first to reach the line,because lane discipline ceased at thispoint and he would have been free topull in front of his competitors if he could(see further on page 14). It would havebeen a dangerous moment if all thechariots in a twelve-chariot race reachedthe line at the same time. The near postwould have caused a bottleneck at theend of that opening dash to reach theline so, to ease the congestion, the postwas sited four or five metres into whatshould have been part of the returntrack. This is why in circuses generallythe central barrier is always slightly outof alignment with the sides of the arena.

The gates were not set in a straight lineat right angles to the sides of the arena,because this would have meant that thedistance to the white line would havevaried according to lane (see figure). Toensure that the race was fair, the row ofstarting gates was curved just enough tomake this distance the same for all thecompetitors.

The seating would have been raised intiers to give the spectators a good view.In most circuses, the seating wasprovided on a stone substructureconsisting of short vaults set side by side

at right angles to the arena. The roofs ofthe vaults tapered downwards towardsthe arena to create a ramped base forthe seats. In more elaborate circuses,there would have been a colonnadedgallery (portico) at the rear of theseating. Being roofed, the passagewould have provided spectators withshade in the sunshine and shelter in therain.

Colchester circus

Much of the plan of the Colchestercircus can now be reconstructed. Majorelements are still missing, but the plansof circuses elsewhere allow the gaps tobe filled in to a degree. The mainuncertainty now is its length, becausethe end with the starting gates is yet tobe located. All that has been found sofar is parts of the seating area. Theposition of the starting gates is un-known, and nothing has as yet beenseen of the central barrier.

At Colchester, the arena was at least350 m long and 69 m wide. One endwas semicircular in shape where thechariots turned 180degrees. The otherend was squared off to accommodatethe starting gates. Tiers of raisedwooden benches surrounded the arenaexcept across the end with the starting

6

The circus in relation to the natural contours and the walled Roman town.

7

gates. There was no colonnaded galleryas occurs in some other circuses. Thebenches were supported on a mound ofearth retained in place by a low wall onthe inside and a taller, buttressed wallon the outside. The distance betweenthe two walls was around 4.7 m, whichto judge by well-preserved circusesabroad, would have been enough forfour tiers of benches. On the assumptionthat five people would need between 2.0and 2.3 m of bench, the capacity of theColchester circus would appear to havebeen around 7,000-9,000 dependingon its length.

Although unusual in circuses, the use ofan earth bank for the seating rather thanstone vaulting is a technique alreadyseen in Britain in its amphitheatres andtwo of its four theatres (Verulamium andGosbecks in Colchester). The thinexternal wall strengthened by buttressesis also particularly reminiscent of theexternal wall for the seating (cavea) atthe Gosbecks theatre.

Nearly ten per cent of the seating areahas been excavated to date. Small partsof the arena have also been examined,but this presents us with a problem. Thearena floor needed to be soft enoughnot to lame the horses, but not so softthat it would rut easily. It probably tookthe form of a layer of sand over a solidbase. But no trace of a surface or anysort of base have as yet been found. Theupper levels of the arena were destroyedby cultivation in the medieval orpost-medieval period — this is apparenton site. By whether the destruction wentdeep enough to remove all traces of thebase is questionable. It may be that thearena of the circus at Colchester wassimply a dirt track covered on the day ofthe races with a layer of sand.

Lingering doubts

Identification of the foundations asbeing parts of a circus seems almostcertain, but more work is needed toremove lingering doubts. There are afew big problems. The foundations,especially the inner one, seem to havebeen rather shallow for the likely heightof the walls they were intended tosupport. No physical remains of thearena have as yet been found excepttopsoil under it. Finds in general are verylimited in quantity, and major elementsof the plan have as yet to be seen. Andfinally, too little has been seen of thecurve to rule out the slight possibility thatthe starting gates were in fact at the westend and not the east despite the hint of

a curve apparent in the slit trenches dugimmediately west of the most recentexcavation area (see above).

However, the use of geophysical surveytechniques (magnetometery and resist-ivity by Tim Dennis of the University ofEssex)) should resolve some of theseproblems in the near future. Prospectsfor locating the central barrier by thismeans are good. More of the seatingarea may also be traceably by thesemethods too. An investigation of thewest end is likely to be especiallyimportant since it should confirm thesemicircular shape.

Who built the circus and why?

The dating evidence for the circus is asyet limited and relatively broad. Asalready explained, the use of Kentishgreensand suggests that it was not early,ie late 1st century at the earliest. Itwould not have represented nearly aslarge a civic project as the building ofthe town wall c AD 65-80, but it wouldstill nevertheless have been a veryexpensive undertaking. Public buildingswere generally paid for by wealthycitizens, but the cost of the circus musthave been so great that governmentfunding seems likely. This raises thequestion as to which emperor wasresponsible. The stock reply to thisquestion would be Hadrian (AD117-138) whose visit to Britain in 122 isassociated with Hadrian’s Wall and arevival of public building in towns. On

Excavation in 2004 of part of thesouthern foundation of the seatingarea of the circus (Site C2). Thefoundation extends diagonally acrossthe picture from bottom right to topcentre. Two rectangular buttresses canbe seen projecting to the left of thefoundation. They lie at either end ofthe ranging rod.

8

the other hand, Marcus Aurelius(161-180) can perhaps be ruled outbecause of his dislike of gaming. Thiskind of approach needs some properconsideration, but ultimately what isreally needed is what is lacking atpresent — some good solid archaeo-logical dating evidence.

The building of the stone circus is likelyto have been the upgrading of anearlier, more modest circus. Indeed,there is an earth-filled feature underthe outer foundation on the CavalryBarracks site (Site J East) whichconceivably might be a constructiontrench for a timber predecessor. Butthis is yet to be examined, and it mightsimply prove to have been an earlierboundary ditch of some sort. Thepresence of a modest number ofmid-1st-century glass cups in the townwith circus scenes (pages 12-13) hintat a popular interest in circuses beforethe stone one was built. Thefoundation of Roman Colchester in theAD 50s would be the most likely periodfor the construction of an early circus.The town was the centre of theImperial Cult (emperor worship) aswitnessed by the Temple of Claudius,the remains of which can be seen inthe basement of Colchester Castle.Circuses were associated with festivalsand ritual as well as racing and othersporting activities, and a connectionbetween an early circus such as thisand the establishment of the ImperialCult is a possibility.

End of the circus

The dating evidence for the end of thecircus is even scantier than for itsconstruction. Pottery in ‘robbertrenches’ indicate that parts of thefoundations were dug up for theirbuilding materials in the 12th century.The Norman period was a time whenthere was much building work in stoneand brick in the town (eg the castle, StJohn’s Abbey, St Botolph’s Priory, andsome of the churches). The work wasundertaken almost entirely with reusedRoman building materials obtained byknocking down standing Roman ruinsand digging up many of their found-ations. The east end of the circusappears to coincide with the southernpart of the precinct of St John’s Abbeywhere there are irregularities in the planof the Norman precinct wall. Since theabbey was founded c 1095, it is con-ceivable that the odd shape of theprecinct somehow reflects parts of theruined circus which were still standing atthat time.

However there is another possibility.Excavations at Balkerne Lane andMiddleborough (both extra-mural sites)have shown that the suburbs of theRoman town were demolished withoutreplacement during the last quarter of

the 3rd century AD. The circus mighthave met the same fate. Had thishappened, we might expect to find4th-century burials within the site of thecircus. But no such burials have beenfound, and the evidence is ambivalent.

Future of the monument

In the short term, there will be more (butlimited) investigations to clarify variouskey issues to do with the plan andpurpose of the building. In the longerterm, those parts of the monumentwhich lie within the Taylor Woodrowdevelopment site are to be permanentlyprotected. The surviving foundations (atleast those parts which have been

uncovered so far) are probably toodelicate to survive long-term exposure,so they are to reburied for safe-keeping.It is early days yet in terms of planning,but Taylor Woodrow are excited aboutthe find and have stated that the circusis to be incorporated into their newdevelopment in such a way that theremains will be protected and the site ofthe circus left as open space, at least asmuch of it as lies within theirdevelopment. Details are yet to bedecided, but the intention is that the siteof the circus will become a permanentand visible feature of Colchester in yearsto come.

Philip Crummy (CAT)

Above left. Conjectural reconstruction of the plan of the circus at Colchester (left)in comparison with the circus at Sagunto in eastern Spain (right).Above right. Conjectural section across the seating area (cavea) of the Colchestercircus.

Below. The Colchester circus. Preliminary sketch by Peter Froste.

9

The harness pendantThough most of the surfaces associatedwith the circus have been ploughedaway by medieval and later farming,one of the few finds that has come fromit is an unusual harness pendant.

Most harness pendants known from theRoman world are military. The cavalryoften used them on the harness of theirhorses, sometimes purely for orna-mental effect on parade. Many had adistinctive two-piece form, the upperpart of which was riveted to a strap andhad one or more rectangular loops onthe reverse to hold the strap in position,while the lower part was freelysuspended from the top piece by a hookor small hinge, allowing it to swing withthe motion of the horse and both catchthe sunlight and rattle against the otherpart, adding extra sparkle and noise tothe occasional flash and clinking ofmore ordinary harness.

In the 1st century AD these fittings werequite large and were often plated withsilver or tin and inlaid with patterns ofniello to create a striking black-on-whitedesign. By the 2nd and 3rd century theyhad decreased in size and were rarelyplated, but they still had the character-istic two-piece form. As well as having arectangular loop on the upper part,some also had a riveted projection onthe back of the lower part where it wasattached to a second strap. This allowedthe junction of the two straps to swivel alittle when the action of the horserequired a bit of ‘give’.

The Garrison harness pendant belongsto this type. The upper part is a round

boss with a central decorative knob andthree similar knobs projecting at the topand sides of the rim; the knob on theright-hand side is missing. The back ishollow and the rectangular loop reachesacross the full width of the boss. Insteadof a knob, on the lower edge is a more orless oval loop with two short sideprojections, again the right-hand one ismissing, which probably means thatthere was more stress and wear on thatside. The lower element of the pendantis much longer than the upper one, butrepeats the knobbed boss design at thetop. Its uppermost knob has anelongated hooked stem, which passesthrough the oval loop on the upper boss.The bottom end is flat and has sidevolutes and a terminal knob.

Some auxiliary cavalry harness pendantsof the 2nd and 3rd century have sidevolutes on the lower element, but noneare exactly the same and none have theknobbed bosses of the Garrison fitting.Could this be a new type of harnesspendant used for the horses that racedat the Colchester circus? Its recoveryfrom the site suggests that this isprecisely the case, and that it was usedeither on the harness of ridden horses,or of the driven pairs, threes or fours thatpulled the racing chariots. One thing iscertain, as the horses had loads to pullor carry, the weight of their harnesswould have been kept to a minimum, sothere would not have been many ofthese pendants around to survive to thepresent day. It is a stroke of luck that thisone was lost and found in the very placethat helps identify its original use.

The Trust’s logo proved to be a better choice than we everimagined it might be. It derives from fragments of a glass sportscup found during the major archaeological excavation atBalkerne Lane in 1976. The charioteer Olympus is doing his lap ofhonour having just won his race. He holds a wreath in his righthand and has a palm branch over his left shoulder. Both aresymbols of victory.

As luck would have it…

The circus has yielded surprisingly few finds. But of those few,one proves to be especially interesting. This is the first of anumber of contributions by Nina Crummy (pages 9 -15 andthe back cover) on chariots, charioteers, the races, and findspossibly associated with the Colchester circus.

Above. The harness pendant from theGarrison site.

Below. Typical 1st-century AD tinnedand nielloed harness pendant. Halforiginal size.

10

It was a widespread practice in theRoman world to place a coin (or two ormore) in graves so that the dead personcould pay Charon, the ferryman, to carrytheir soul across the river that wasbelieved to separate the living worldfrom the underworld. Such coins wereknown as ‘the ferryman’s fee’. If theburial rite used was inhumation, the coinmight be placed in the mouth or in theright hand, where Charon could easilyfind it, or sometimes a coin was placedon each eye. In cremation graves thecoin was placed in the burial pit with theother grave goods, but sometimes theywere burnt on the pyre with the deadperson.

In many cases the coins used were justthose in circulation at the time of death,but occasionally they were antiques thatmust have been treasured even whenthey no longer had any real monetaryvalue, usually because either theobverse (front) or the reverse image wasrich in funerary symbolism. This is mostnoticeable in the case of coins inchildren’s graves, which might bebetween 100 and 200 years’ old,sometimes even more, when placed inthe grave and which often have designsof protective gods, goddesses, oranimals on the reverse. Because thepassage of the soul to the underworldwas seen as a journey, sometimes thecoins bear ‘travel’ images, such as anantique coin in a grave at Poundbury inDorset which had a galley on thereverse. Another theme was theall-conquering power of death, whichwas inextricably linked to the triumph oflife-everlasting over death. A lion on thereverse could be seen both as a symbolof the all-devouring jaws of death and asa powerful guardian of the soul thatmight meet all sorts of ghastly terrors onits journey to the underworld.

One of the graves on the Garrison sitecontained a coin that offers a similarglimpse of layers of symbolic meaning. Itis a dupondius (a low value copper-alloy

coin) of Germanicus, the nephew of theemperor Tiberius (AD 14–37) whoadopted him as his son in AD 4, thefather of the emperor Gaius Caligula(AD 37-41), and the brother of theemperor Claudius (AD 41-54). BornNero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, onhis adoption by Tiberius he took thename Iulius Caesar Germanicus. Bothhis natural father Drusus and hisuncle/adoptive father Tiberius, the sonsof Augustus’s wife Livia by her firstmarriage, had campaigned long andhard against the Germans, andGermanicus too served as commander-in-chief in Gaul and Germany. Thoughnever emperor himself (he died, perhapsof poison, in AD 19), he wastremendously popular with the army andwith the Roman people in general, andhis son Gaius Caligula minted somecoins in his memory. Coins minted byCaligula are comparatively rare inBritain (he had only a short reign anddied two years before the conquest ofBritain), but over 70 have been found inor around Colchester, mainly fromSheepen, and several of these arecommemorative coins of Germanicus.

The obverse of the coin from the Garrisonsite shows Germanicus in a triumphalchariot drawn by four horses. He holds aneagle-tipped sceptre in his left hand. Thelegend reads GERMANICVS CAESAR. Onthe reverse he is shown in military dresswith a cloak over his left arm, standing withhis right arm and hand outstretched in theattitude of command and carrying aneagle standard in his left hand. The legendreads SIGNIS RECEPT DEVICTIS GERM,and below it are S and C in large letters,standing for Senatus consulto (by decree ofthe senate) who nominally had to givepermission for the minting of coins.

The progress of Germanicus in thetriumphal chariot can be taken simply atface value. He was awarded a triumphin Rome in AD 17 following a successfulcampaign against the Germans in whichhe recovered legionary standards lost in

AD 9, when three legions led byQuinctilius Varus were massacred andtheir standards captured. The capture ofthe eagles was considered to be a greatdisaster, as they represented the heartand spirit of the legions, in the same wayas regimental flags did for the Britisharmy in later times. The legend SIGNISRECEPT DEVICTIS GERM can betranslated as ‘he took back thestandards from the conqueredGermans’. When the coins with thisdesign were minted it was supposed toremind the Roman people ofGermanicus’s military success, whicheffectively wiped the slate clean of theVaran disaster, and to suggest that hisson Gaius Caligula was of the samecourageous stock.

The soil conditions have made the coincorrode and degrade over the manyhundreds of years it has lain buried, anddespite being old when placed in thegrave, when it first came out of theground it did not look as if it had seenmuch wear through use, though it isslightly underweight compared tomint-condition coins. It would be muchmore worn if it had been in circulationfor about 50-100 years, so it must havebeen carefully treasured through two,three, or even four generations before itwas used as the ferryman’s fee. Onesimple explanation is that the coin waskept by the family of someone who had

A special fee for the ferryman

A bronze coin found in a cemetery near thecircus has the image of a chariot drawn by fourhorses. Was one of the dead person’s ancestorsa charioteer or is there some other explanationfor the find?

Above. The coin of Germanicus from agrave on the Garrison site (Site JNorth).

Below. A well-preserved coin of thesame type (after Roman Imperial

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The racing chariot

Most contemporary pictures of Romancircus races show the quadriga, drawnby teams of four horses, but sometimesthe biga, pulled by two horses, was used.There was also the triga, pulled by threehorses, though this fell out of favourearly on in the development of theRoman state, and sometimes whenparticular displays of skill were called forteams of six, eight, ten or even twentyhorses were put in harness, always linedup side by side, rather than in a line.

No racing chariot (currus circensis) oreven part of one has ever been found onan archaeological excavation, but thereare a number of models that were usedas toys. The historian Suetoniuscomplained that the emperor Nerowould rather spend time playing with hismodel chariots than deal with thebusiness of government. These modelsand the illustrations of quadrigae onpots, lamps, glass vessels etc show thatcompared to the triumphal chariot(currus triumphalis) the racing chariotwas a lightweight contraption, built forspeed, control, and to prevent thehorses tiring quickly. Estimates of theweight of a chariot place it at about25-30 kg, so that, when the weight ofthe charioteer is added in, the maximuma single horse might be expected to pullwas only 25 kg for a team of four, 50 kgfor a team of two.

The chariot frame was of wood, with aspringy floor of interwoven straps, and alow breastwork that was probably madeof hide. The floor was low and wheelswere small, keeping the centre of gravityas close to the ground as possible. Therewas no unnecessary ornament, andmetal fittings would have been kept to aminimum to avoid adding to the weight.A curved pole about 2.3 metres long ranfrom the underside of the chariot up to

the height of the withers of the twocentral horses (iugales) in a team offour, where a crossbar, or yoke, about 1metre long, was attached to theirharness. The two horses attached to theyoke provided the motive power andstability, and the pole was comparativelyshort to keep them close in to the chariotand make them easier to control. Sothat their tails did not get caught in thebreastwork of the chariot or in the reins,they were bound with ribbons. The twooutermost horses (funales) were notharnessed to the pole as they providedthe speed and turning ability at thebends. The left-hand horse would betrained to take the bend as close in aspossible, while the right-hand horse keptthe speed going.

The charioteer wore a short tunic, aprotective hat of leather or felt, strapsbound about his torso to protect hischest, and more straps about his lowerlegs. He did not just hold the reins in hishands, but also wrapped the ends abouthis body. This not only meant that hecould regather them easily if he droppedthem, but also that he could use hisbody weight most effectively for control.He always wore a dagger so that hecould cut them loose in an accident.Despite this, fatalities were high, andchariot-racing can be best compared totoday’s Formula One or TT racing, withhigh financial rewards for the victor, butalso a high risk of an early death.

served with Germanicus during hiscampaigns, but over the years andsuccessive generations its militarysignificance had ceased to have any realimpact and it was finally buried aspayment for Charon.

Alternatively, the extra layers ofmeaning attached to coins in gravescould mean that the chariot on the frontwas intended to refer to the journey tothe underworld – being a triumphalprogress, the dead person wasapproaching Hades both with no fear ofdeath and under the protection of thetriumphant commander. The imposingattitude of Germanicus on the reversecould also be taken to mean that he wasacting as the protector of the dead soul.This is reinforced by the eagle-tippedsceptre and the eagle standard, whichrepresent the power and might of theRoman state as well as of its army.

If the coin had been found in any othercemetery in Colchester, then one of thetwo explanations above would beconsidered appropriate for its choice asCharon’s fee. The grave, however, wasin the cemetery that lay close by thecircus found at the Abbey Field, and thissuggests that a third explanation mightbe more appropriate. Could it be thatthis was the grave of a charioteer, or of amember of a charioteer’s family, or ofsome other person involved in chariot-racing? Though the triumphal chariot(currus triumphalis) was heavier than theracing chariot (currus circensis) and hadlarger wheels, such differences wouldhave had no real importance in the faceof death – the image of a quadrigawould be all that was important. Themessage carried by the coin to theunderworld might therefore be that ofannouncing the dead person’s occup-ation or family connections, butprobably still carried the idea that theyapproached the underworld in triumphand without fear.

Sketch of a biga (two-horse chariot),showing the pole and yoke. After amodel said to have been found in theriver Tiber, Rome, and now in theBritish Museum.

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The image of a charioteer driving aquadriga, a four-horse racing chariot,has been used as the logo of theColchester Archaeological Trust sincethe mid 1970s, ever since four joiningfragments of glass with that design werefound on the Balkerne Lane site, duringexcavations in advance of the con-struction of St Mary’s car park (see page9). The fragments came from a type ofglass vessel called a circus, or chariot-race, cup, made in the late Claudianand Neronian period, from about AD 50to the mid 60s. Cups of this form weremade by blowing glass into a claymould, and some are in strong colourssuch as dark blue or green, others inpale glass tinted with yellow, pale blue,or blue/green. The Balkerne Lane cupfragments are pale yellow-green.

There are two main types of circus cup,those with a single main frieze ofdecoration around the main part of thevessel, and those with two friezes.Related types, sometimes called arenacups, have a single main frieze showingfighting gladiators or athletic contests.All these types can be subdivided againaccording to the details of thedecoration. At least thirteen circus andarena cups have been found inColchester, decorated with ninedifferent designs.

The replica two-frieze chariot-race cup from Colchester. Made by Mark Taylor andDavid Hill.

Race for victory

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Single-frieze circus cups show fourteams of four-horse chariots paradingfrom left to right, with one charioteerholding a palm branch and wreath toshow he was the victor. A narrow bandat the top gives the names of thecharioteers, and another narrow band atthe base is decorated with images ofwild animals and trees or shrubs. TheBalkerne Lane fragment belongs to thistype, and its charioteer, who carries thesymbols of victory, is named Olympus;Olympe va is what the crowd would haveshouted as they cheered him round.Some specialists interpret va as short forvale (farewell), others as vade (go).

A complete cup of this particular typehas been found in a grave at Couvin,Belgium, and gives the names of theother three charioteers as Pyramus,Eutycus, and Ierax. There is anothergroup with the names Mussculosus,Eutychus, Olympus and Poenix, onwhich Poenix is shown as the victor. Partof a cup belonging to this group wasfound in the mid 20th century on the siteof the General Post Office in HeadStreet (now the Odeon cinema).

A complete two-frieze chariot-race cupwas found in the 19th century in acremation burial in west Colchester; partof the Pollexfen Collection, it is now in

the British Museum. All the cups arethin-walled, and the pale yellow-greenglass of this example and the Balkernefragment makes them seem particularlydelicate.

On this cup the inscribed panel belowthe rim names the charioteers as Hierax,Olympus, Antilocus and Cresces. Theupper frieze shows fourteen structuresthat decorated the spina, the centralbarrier, of the circus. In the order shownin the illustration here they are: the topof one set of triple turning posts, atwo-storey pavilion with a conical roof, astatue on a column, an altar, seven eggson a four- columned frame, a shrine, analtar, and a statue on a column; thencomes the top of another set of tripleturning posts, followed by sevendolphins on a four-columned frame, astatue on a column, an altar, atwo-storey pavilion, an altar, an obelisk,and a statue of a lion. The seven eggsand seven dolphins were used to countoff the seven laps of each race. Thebottoms of the turning posts appear onthe bottom frieze, which shows the fourteams of four-horse chariots. None ofthe charioteers carries a wreath andpalm frond, but three have va after theirnames while Cresces has av; this maystand for ave (hail) and could mean thathe was the victor, alternatively it may be

that the mould-maker mistakenlyreversed the a and v of va.

So far no production site has beenlocated for circus cups, though theirdistribution is restricted to the north-western and western provinces of theRoman Empire, with concentrations inSwitzerland and elsewhere in the upperRhineland, Cologne and the lowerRhineland, France, and Britain. There isa possibility that glassmakers travelledaround with their moulds, producing justenough cups to satisfy local demand inthe towns and military sites they visited.Could they have been made to celebrateparticular race days at these places?After all, there is no reason to supposethat chariot-racing only took place inpurpose-built circuses; provided theturning points were marked in some wayany flat area would be suitable, in thesame way as any grassy area can beused for football today provided the goalmouths are marked by jackets orjumpers. This could mean that chariot-racing took place in Colchester rightfrom the founding of the colony in AD49, and it may well be possible that thestone circus at the Abbey Field had atimber predecessor, in the same waythat the stone amphitheatre in Londonreplaced an earlier timber one.

The parts of the central barrier shown on the cup are as follows: turning post (A),pedimented building (B), columned statue(C), altar (D), eggs (E), pavilion or altar (F), altar or statue (G), columned statue (H), turning post (I), dolphins(J), columnedstatue (K), altar or shrine (L), pedimented building (M), altar (N), obelisk (O), feline on high pedstal (P). (After RomanCircuses, by John H Humphrey, pp 189-91).

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A day at the Circus Maximus

The races in Rome developed as part ofthe ceremonial games that took placeover several days and during the Romangames (ludi Romani) there were fivedays of racing, in the plebeian games(ludi plebeii) only three. Under Augustususually twelve races were run on eachday, but this was doubled under GaiusCaligula and 24 became the norm.Race days might also be held as part ofthe celebrations for a triumph or someother special public occasion. Each racewas made up of seven laps, with a totaldistance per race of nearly 4 km. All 24races covered a distance of about 95 kmor 59 miles. As well as chariot racesthere were also acrobatic races, withriders coping with two horses andjumping from one to the other in turn athigh speed. There might in addition beboxing, athletics, and gladiatorialcontests, which did not only take placein the amphitheatres.

The four racing factions, Blues, Greens,Reds and Whites, had their stables outon the Campus Martius, about 1 milefrom the Circus Maximus. Hundreds ofpeople were involved in looking after thehorses and preparing them for theraces: trainers, grooms, stable lads andvets, and then there were also thechariot-makers, tack-makers, tailors,acrobatic horsemen, charioteers anddoctors, as well as guards who wereposted to prevent dirty work by the rivalfactions or supporters. A minimum offour teams entered each race, one fromeach faction, and a maximum of twelve.If all the races had involved twelvefour-horse teams this would mean1,152 horses in all to be groomed,harnessed and taken down to the circus,as well as the acrobats’ horses. Someraces only used two-horse teams, butothers might use anything up to ten, soabout 700-1,000 horses might beinvolved each day.

Other staff worked down at the circusitself: the mechanics in charge of thestarting gates, the men who cleared thearena of debris and wounded and deadhorses and men during and after eachrace, and the race officials such as thereferees, lap-counters, and trumpeters.Some pictures of race scenes showhorsemen riding alongside the chariots;these were the hortatores or iubilatores,names that suggest that they acted likemodern-day cheer-leaders, but it ismore likely that they rode ahead andhelped to guide the drivers around

wreckage and pointed out gaps where aspurt of speed might allow the team toovertake. An unenviable task was that ofthe sparsores, young boys who stoodaround the edge of the arena and triedto refresh the horses and drivers withwater. Many died beneath the hoovesand wheels of the galloping teams.

Before the racing started there wasalways a formal procession, lead by thepresiding official in a heavy triumphalchariot drawn by four horses. Followinghim came men carrying religiousstatues, while other sacred objectsmight be drawn along on carts.Musicians and dancers added to thespectacle, which ended with a parade ofthe competitors.

The Circus Maximus changedconsiderably over the centuries, withsuccessive Roman leaders andemperors adding various improvements.Under Caesar it could seat about150,000 spectators, but by the time ofTrajan its capacity was up to about255,000. It was an imposing structure,measuring 600 by 200 metres, and onthe outside its arcades provided placesof business for sellers of refreshments,astrologers, prostitutes, and other smallbusinessmen and women, all hoping torelieve the race-goers of some readycash. Bets were placed on the races,and the supporters of the rival factionsfrequently argued and came to blows.The chatter of all these people coupledwith the roar of the spectators during theraces must have rivalled that ofmodern-day races and footballmatches, and would have added to thepent-up agitation of the horses anddrivers.

The excitement was general, and thepoet Ovid in his Art of Love suggestedthat the circus was a good place foryoung men to go and pick up girls. Icame here, in fact, so that I might sitbeside you and talk to you. I didn’t wantthe love which you stir in me to beconcealed from you. So, you watch theraces and I’ll watch you. Let’s eachwatch the things we love most, and let’sfeast our eyes on them… Why are youedging away from me? It’s no use. Theseat marker forces us to touch…Ohdear, your skirt is trailing on the ground.Lift it up, or here, I will do it…

But even Ovid’s imaginary young manbroke off his pursuit of his heart’s desireto watch the race. The teams were eachallocated a starting-box by the drawing

of lots. The boxes really were just that, atotally-enclosed space with doubledoors facing the arena that were closedunder tension. The presiding officialdropped a white napkin as the signal foreach race to begin, and a central boltwas pulled so that all the starting-gatesflew open at the same time. The teamssprang into action, all racing straightahead for a white line marked on theground between the central spina andthe right-hand wall. Once they hadpassed this line, they could start cuttingacross each other, all trying hard to getinto the lead and tuck in as close to thespina as possible.

Estimates of the speed they could reachsuggest it was up to about 75 kph on thestraight, but this had to drop to about25-30 kph at the turns. A collision at thisspeed would be disastrous, and theLatin name for such a crash wasnaufragium, shipwreck, which conveysthe mangled wreckage of chariot,drivers and horses that must have beenthe result. In seven laps, the dangeroustight turns had to be negotiated thirteentimes before the final burst of speed forthe finishing line. The laps were countedoff by devices consisting of sevendolphins or seven eggs fixed in a frame,and a second frame with eggs wasplaced on the edge of the arena where itcould be seen by the charioteers.

As soon as the race was over the winnerwas presented with the prize money, asymbolic palm frond of victory, and awreath (usually a circlet of flowers ormetal, rather than laurel) by thepresiding official and then drove a lap ofhonour round the course. Sometimesprizes were also awarded to thosecoming in second, third or fourth. Thisbrief pause for the victory celebrationsallowed the arena to be cleared andprepared for the next race, and then itall started once more.

At the end of the day a banquet wasserved, and gifts were tossed into thecrowd. They might be snacks,money-filled purses, or ‘raffle tickets’that gave the lucky catcher a chance towin a house, a farm, or even a ship.These gave even the punters whose betshad failed to net them a fortune duringthe course of the day the chance torecoup their losses.

And such was the taste of the Romanpopulace for this entertainment thatthey all went back again for the nextday’s sport.

The four team colours are clearly visible: white and blue, greenand red. Grooms are holding the heads and bridles of thehorses … calming them with soothing pats and reassuringthem with words of encouragement. Still the horses fret in thegates, lean against the starting barrier, and snort loudly. …They rear up, prance, and kick impatiently against the wood ofthe gates. A shrill blast of the trumpet and the chariots leap outof the gates onto the track… The wheels fly over the groundand the air is choked with the dust stirred up on this track. Thedrivers urge their horses with whips. Standing in the chariotsthey lean far forward so that they can whip even the shouldersof the horses… The chariots fly out of sight, quickly coveringthe long open stretch… When they have come round the farturn, both the rival teams have passed Consentius, but hispartner is in the lead. The middle teams concentrate now ontaking the lead on the inside lane. If the driver in front pulls hishorses too far right toward the spectator stands, he leaves anopening on his left, in the inside lane. Consentius, however,redoubles his efforts to hold back his horses and skilfully reservetheir energy for the seventh and last lap. The others race fullout, urging their horses with whip and voice. The track is moistwith the sweat of both horses and drivers …And thus they race,the first lap, the second, the third, the fourth. In the fifth lap,the leader is no longer able to withstand the pressure of hispursuers. He knows his horses are exhausted, that they can no

longer respond to his demand for speed, and he pulls themaside. When the sixth lap had been completed and the crowdwas already demanding that the prize be awarded,Consentius’s opponents thought that they had a very safe leadfor the seventh and last lap, and they drove withself-confidence, not a bit worried above a move by Consentius.But suddenly he loosens the reins, plants his feet firmly on thefloorboard, leans far over the chariot… and makes his fasthorses gallop full out. One of the other drivers tries to make avery sharp turn at the far post, feeling Consentius close on hisheels, but he is unable to turn his four wildly excited horses andthey plunge out of control. Consentius passes him carefully.The fourth driver is enthralled by the cheers of the spectatorsand turns his galloping horses too far right towards the stands.Consentius drives straight and fast, and passes the driver whohas angled out and only now, too late, begun to urge his horseswith the whip. The latter pursues Consentius recklessly, hopingto overtake him. He cuts in sharply across the track. His horseslose their balance and fall. Their legs become tangled in thespinning chariot wheels and are snapped and broken. Thedriver is hurled headlong out of the shattered chariot whichthen flass on top of him in a heap of twisted wreckage. Hisbroken and bloody body is still… And now the emperorpresents the palm branch of victory to Consentius.

Sidonius Apollinaris, Poems, 23.323-424

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The price of fameA successful charioteer could become a rich man.But for some, life was short...

Though the allegiance of race-goers laywith the factions, the Blues, Greens,Reds and Whites, rather than with thecharioteers themselves (just like infootball today), successful charioteersand their horses became householdnames. The obituary of the famousScorpus, who died in his mid 20s, wascomposed by the poet Martial, adevotee of the circus. Charioteers wereusually of low social status, eitherfreedmen or slaves bought by thefactions and trained up, but they couldbecome millionaires in even a shortcareer, as the financial rewards werevery high. The purse money per racemight be between 15,000 and 60,000sestertii (high-value copper-alloy coins)– compared to a legionary’s annual payof 900 sestertii.

However, the risk of death was also veryhigh, though certainly not as bad as forgladiators. Crescens, born in Maure-tania, North Africa, and probablybrought to Rome as a slave, drove forthe Blue faction. He died aged 22, after

winning 47 out of 686 races andearning 1,558,346 sestertii. Anotherdriver died at 29 and had driven for allfour factions in the course of his career.He won 739 races, some for drivingsix-horse, eight-horse and ten-horseteams. His brother died at 20 but evenby then had also driven for all fourfactions and had won 125 races.

Not all charioteers died in their youth. ASpanish charioteer, Diocles, who raced firstfor the White and then for the Red faction,began racing at 18 and drove for 24 yearsbefore retiring at 42. He entered 4,257races, and won 1,462 of them. In all hewon 2,900 purses, some for second, thirdand fourth place totalling 35,863,120sestertii. He usually drove quadrigae butsome of the purses he won were for drivingwith teams of two, six and seven horses. Hewas obviously a master of tactics, becausein 815 races he took the lead from the startand held it to the end.

Other charioteers won even more races:Epaphroditus won 1,467 races, Scorpus

2,048, and Pompeius Musclosus a mag-nificent 3,559. Gifts were showeredupon them by successful punters, andofficialdom usually turned a blind eye onany fights or illegal escapades. If theywere slaves, and if they lived longenough, they could use their winnings topurchase their freedom.

Successful horses were also held in highesteem. Crescens’ epitaph records thename of the four horses he drove in hisfirst winning race: Circius (Whirlwind),Acceptor (Hawk), Delicatus (SweetDelight) and Cotynus (Dark Bay). If thehorses survived to the end of theircareers, they were not slaughtered butput out to pasture and treated withrespect, even having a decent burial anda gravestone raised in their honour.Though most race-horses were stallions,a tombstone offers this tribute to anAfrican mare, Spendusa: Sired on thesandy plains of Gaetulia by a Gaetulianstallion, fast as the wind, incomparablein your life, you now, Spendusa, dwell inthe realm of Lethe.

A first-hand account of a race in the 5th centuryThe vivid description below by the 5th-century poet Sidonius Apollinaris of a four-team race in which his friend Consentiustook part brings home both the excitement and the danger as well as the tactics involved, with two drivers working together tocut out the other two.

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Running rings around the Arena –Roman burials at the garrisonBy Howard Brooks (CAT)

It was not normal practice in the Romanperiod to bury the dead inside the walledtowns. Instead the favoured places werealongside the main approach roads intoRoman towns and cities. In Colchester,extensive areas of Roman cemeterieshave been discovered around thewestern and southern sides of the town –from Balkerne Hill to Lexden Road, andalong the south part of the townbetween the Maldon and MerseaRoads. There were smaller and separatecemeteries along other roads lines – forinstance the cemetery excavated at theAsda superstore site in 1997 (ColchesterArchaeologist 11). Previous CAT ex-cavations in the cemeteries include StMary’s Hospital (over 70 burials), ButtRoad (over 700 inhumations), theAbbey Field (73 cremations: ColchesterArchaeologist 14), and the recent Hand-ford House site in Lexden (54 crem-ations and 9 inhumations: ColchesterArchaeologist 17).

Roads, boundaries and burials at theCavalry Barracks

When the Le Cateau Barracks were builtin the 19th century, a great number ofRoman burials were found. Exactrecords of location and numbers werenot kept, but Roman burial pots were socommon that in one instance they weredescribed as ‘like currants in a bun’. Itwas therefore no surprise whenexcavations on Site J, at the adjacentCavalry Barracks (recently the Garrison

Most of the northern part of the Colchester Garrisonredevelopment coincides with the cemeteries of RomanColchester. As reported in Colchester Archaeologist 16 and17, CAT has been fieldwalking, trial-trenching andexcavating at the garrison since 2002, and is currentlyexcavating Roman burials at the Cavalry Barracks (Site J),and near the Arena Leisure Centre (Site C2)*.

Above. Jet bear (before cleaning).

Left. Emma Sandford excavating acremation burial. A shallow bowl wasplaced upside down over the potcontaining the cremated bones.

(*The investigations near the Arena Leisure Centre are part of theTaylor Woodrow project - see page 2 for details.)

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Saddle Club) turned up a huge numberof burials. At the time of writing, some270 burials have been excavated. Theserange from very simple ‘unaccomp-anied’ burials (ie without grave goods),to cremations and inhumations withgrave goods (pots which presumablycontained food and drink for the journeyto the afterlife). Some of the simplecremations are extremely simple – justbowl-shaped pits containing a singlevessel containing the dead person’scremated remains – whereas the richerburials could contain a large number ofpots, and such items as lamps, smalldecorative wooden caskets, and piecesof personal jewelry. One burialcontained an exquisite carved jet bear,which is reminiscent of the two carvedjet bears found at the Abbey Field in2000. It seems that both the poor andthe wealthy were buried here.

It is now becoming apparent that theRoman cemeteries were not just largeareas of burials – they were split up intoa number of distinct compartments orplots by boundary ditches and evenmetalled roads. This was first seen atButt Road in the 1970s, and has nowbeen confirmed at the Garrison, whereboundary ditches and distinct clusters of

Above. Some of the Roman ring ditches. Note the rectangular pits in the centre ofeach of them where the cremations were buried.

Below. Delicate work lifting grave goods in a cremation burial. Left to right: LauraPooley, Ben Holloway, and Cat Bell.

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burials have been discovered. Perhapsthe existence of separate cemetery plotsexplains why different types of burialsoccur in different areas – the Butt Roadsite contained exclusively inhumationburials, yet the Cavalry Barracks hasrevealed mainly cremation burials. Inone part of Site J, the burials were allsmall – was this a child’s cemetery area?

The ring ditches near the Arena

A particularly fascinating site is Area C2,immediately east of the Arena LeisureCentre (formerly the NAAFI). Dis-coveries here include a buttressed wall(part of the Roman circus), and another76 or so burials. However, what makesthis site uniquely interesting is the factthat some of the cremation burials arecentrally located inside ring-ditches.Most people will be familiar with

ring-ditches as the remains of BronzeAge barrows, such as those excavatedby CAT at Chitts Hill in the 1970s. Butthe Garrison ring ditches are not BronzeAge in date – they are quite definitelylate Roman. At the time of writing,research is underway to try to findparallels for these burials, and to placethem into some kind of context. For suchsmall ring ditches (they are generallybetween 4 and 6 m in diameter), thereare many parallels on Saxon sites suchas Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, and Orsett andAlresford in Essex, but nothing like thishas been seen before in Colchester, andno late Roman, British parallels have asyet been identified.

Although we have many Romancremation burials of the 2nd and 3rdcenturies AD in Colchester, inhumationburial had generally become thefavoured burial rite by the 4th century.This was especially so after the Edict ofConstantine permitted and promotedChristianity in the year AD 313.Therefore, in ‘the archaeologicalrecord’, one would expect to see paganstyle cremation burials gradually re-placed by the Christian-style inhum-ations, so that by the mid to late 4thcentury the overwhelming majority ofburials should be inhumations.

The discovery of 4th-century cremationsinside Saxon type ring ditches obviouslyprompts a number of questions. Whoseburials are these? Do the ring-ditches

give any clue to the origin of the people?The ring-ditches are a distinctly Saxon(ie German) rather than a Romanphenomenon, so they might indicate aGermanic origin for those buried here. Ifthese people were of Germanic stock,then that might suggest a link with moreSaxon material found only 200 m to theeast. During the 19th century, Saxonjewelry, spear-heads and shield bosseswere found on the east side of MerseaRoad. Although the material was notrecovered under ‘controlled conditions’,objects of this type invariably come fromcemeteries, and so a Saxon cemeterymust have existed there. In addition, aburial in a burnished Saxon pot isrecorded from the adjacent Meeanee &Hyderabad barracks.

So it appears that we have an area ofSaxon or Germanic burials on MerseaRoad, and a further group (thering-ditch burials) near the circus. Arethese two areas part of the same, largecemetery where people of Germanicorigin are buried? And who are they –citizens of Colchester who justhappened to be German? Or are theyGerman mercenary soldiers of the typeknown to have been drafted in by theRomano-British authorities in the later3rd and 4th centuries? Or maybe theywere even the families of circusperformers! Seems very unlikely, but younever know.

Above. Excavation of a Roman cre-mation burial in progress.

Left. The circles are the remains of theRoman ring-ditches. The two rect-angular buildings are the remains ofdemolished World War 2 air raidshelters. Part of the buttressed southwall of the circus can just be made outin the shade of the trees at the top ofthe photograph.

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Archaeological excavations on the new Abbeyfield

development were conducted on behalf of leading

national housebuilder, Taylor Woodrow. The

company is thrilled to be part of such a discovery

and believes it can only have a positive affect for

Colchester and future residents of Abbeyfield.

Peter Andrew, Taylor Woodrow Eastern regional

managing director, said: ‘The excavation of a

Roman Circus is a fantastic discovery for Colchester

and has caused a great deal of excitement. We are

delighted to have supported the Colchester

Archaeological Trust in revealing such significant

finds and will endeavour to preserve as much of the

remains as possible for future generations.’

The discovery of the only verified example of a

Roman circus in Britain has generated a great deal

of national and regional media attention and is sure

to add to the growing interest in Abbeyfield from

local residents.

Abbeyfield will be an exciting new urban village

within walking distance of Colchester town centre. It

will feature more than 2,500 new homes,

refurbished Grade II listed buildings and work units

set in acres of landscaped open space, leafy paths

and cycle-ways and children’s play areas.

Abbeyfield Project Manager, James Moodie said:‘We have been working closely with the towncouncil to ensure that Abbeyfield is not onlyColchester’s most attractive development for newresidents, but also, that its impact on existingresidents is entirely positive.

‘One of the most important tasks is to ensure thatAbbeyfield provides the best of the basics; transport,education and health. You can then add to thosethree other amenities like shops and opportunitiesfor small businesses.

‘The facilities provided by our plan will not onlycover the needs of the new residents but will also besufficient to improve the provision for people whoalready live around the development.

‘New and improved roads, a redevelopment of thetrain station, a new health centre and contributionsto improve educational facilities will all benefitexisting and new communities.’

Leisure is becoming increasingly important tobuyers and Abbeyfield will be one of the bestprovided areas in the region.

James said: ‘For children and young people, there willbe 14 new playgrounds, provisions for youth centresand improved communication links to the town.

Abbeyfield –a modern

community in themaking

21

‘Sporting facilities will be extended and enhancedwith a new leisure centre planned and extra sportingpitches. Abbeyfield will also be one of the greenestand most spacious new developments in the UKwith acres of open green space, includingcycle-ways, bridleways and open parkland.’

Finally, the look of the Abbeyfield will be completelyin keeping with the current spirit and culture ofColchester. ‘The architectural plans are little shortof stunning,’ said James. ‘We have workedextremely hard to ensure Abbeyfield will be aspleasing to the eye as it will be to live in. Essex’smost ambitious choice of housing styles will mix withtree lined avenues and other visually appealingfeatures to make the area second to none.’

Everyone who has registered an interest inAbbeyfield will be invited to the opening of the stateof the art sales centre in a few months. The buildingwill be the focal point of the regenerated Abbeyfieldarea. It will contain plans, drawings and models ofeach proposed phase of construction. Staff at thecentre will be able to answer queries relating to thedevelopment as well, of course, as helping buyerschoose their ideal new home.

The new centre will also host a number of exhibitions,the first of which will be a display of some of theinteresting archaeology which has been uncovered.

The second will be a display of a more recent tripdown memory lane. Liz Robinson, sales andmarketing director for Taylor Woodrow explains:‘We are looking for pictures, drawings andanecdotes from people who have lived in andaround the area. Communities have been enjoyingAbbeyfield for thousands of years and we would liketo gather a pictorial and narrative record fromVictorian times to the present day.’ If you have anyinformation, please get in touch via the Abbeyfieldwebsite - abbeyfield.com.

A picture Taylor ’ Woodrow’s memory lane. Artillery training on the Abbey Field prior to 1914. From Colchester, a PictorialHistory by John Marriage.

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The railway comes toColchester

By Peter E Thompson

Transport of goods in bulk began in theindustrial areas of the kingdom as anatural evolution. Canals were anestablished system, but being con-strained to follow a winding path tomaintain level water, their journeys werelong and time-consuming. Any attempttowards shortening the distance bybuilding locks to surmount gradientswas very expensive in infrastructure andin fact introduced even moreundesirable delays due to congestion.Counter-productive in today’s language.And in most cases, the horse was stillking, commanding both weight hauled,and speed of travel.

East Anglia was able to live without allthis hurley-burley for a few years longerthan the rest. It had an extensivecoastline with many rivers. Goods couldbe landed and various improvements towaterways such as the River Stourpermitted delivery quite long distancesinland. It became apparent that higherprices for produce could then be fetchedin the Great Wen, because delivery aftercropping was faster and the item wasconsequently fresher for the consumer.

There was no instant change. Stratfordwas still open fields that had onlyrecently been covered with green-houses. It would take something verypersuasive to overcome the resistance toa change of lifestyle by the smallholdersliving on Stratford Marshes. It is still onlythree miles from the River Lea to theCity.

But industry and commerce wasspreading outwards from Thames-side.Housing estates were being built in vast

numbers, the residential workforce wasmoving away from its workplace andtransport was feeding the demand formobility.

Stratford Marsh was infilled and the newtown stretched into the distance fromthe windmill towards the east. ThorntonFields became a twenty-road set ofcarriage sidings and the two-platformstation at the Stratford junction of thenew lines to Cambridge and Colchestermetamorphosed into today’s twelve. In1938, Stratford was the largest steamlocomotive depot in Europe with 300engines allocated to its filth-encrustedsheds. But what about Colchester?

The fringe

It was said that one should beware ofvisiting places like Tollesbury orBrightlingsea in case one fell over theedge of East Anglia and was never seenagain. An apocryphal tale, but thedemand for mobility was a long timegestating. However the word was out.These new-fangled railway machinescould cover 25 miles in an hour, and ajourney to London AND BACK could becompleted within daylight.

The Eastern Counties Railway reachedColchester in 1843, running out ofmoney in the process and pausing in itsstruggle towards Ipswich. Business menand persons of wealth or importancefound it necessary to make the ad-venturous journey to London to overseethe efficient expansion of theirinvestments. The Country was coming toTown at last.

Service

The railways struggled for quite a longtime to find their identity in an era ofsocial change. The biggest impact wasmade by those who had the biggestpurses – nothing new there – but it wasmanifested in many different ways.

Groups of businessmen demanded thatrailways be built from their town ‘A’ tothe next largest, ‘B’, and by skilfulinclusion in the group of strategiclandowners, who were often well paid incompany shares or coin of the realm forparcels of land previously worth verylittle, their targets were achieved. If theirneed was to shift a product to aparticular place, eg not necessarily to bepart of the national network, then so itwas.

In 1846, the Colchester, Stour Valley,Sudbury & Halstead Railway Companyobtained an Act for its construction,followed soon after by further legislationto extend the railway from Colchester tothe Hythe, Colchester’s seaport. Therewas an option to build a curve fromnorth to west at Marks Tey, where it hadrunning powers over the EasternCounties Railway to Colchester from anorth to east connection, to take trainsdirect to London. Land was purchasedand the station suitably designed. But itheld no interest for the Board of theC.SV.S. & H. They wanted only to reachthe sea via Colchester and the ‘London’curve was never built. After 158 years ofchanging trains for their journey toLondon, the citizens of Sudbury haveprobably got used to the idea that itnever will be. A recent plan for massive

First train to Colchesterfrom Ipswich in 1846.

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development at Marks Tey included anew station in a different location, butstill no chance of a ‘London’ curve.

However, in the 1850s, this did notprevent passengers from making manyand vociferous complaints about thetrains, few in number though they were.They said that the trains were often anhour or more later than their advertisedtime, citing as the reason ‘the prolongeddelays caused by the stopping at everystation to carry out shunting, and theattaching and detaching of wagons.’This sometimes involved the passenger-carrying vehicles and their occupants.They might have been good ol’ Suffolkboys, but the inadequate brakes of thetime must have provided a degree ofexcitement not often found on afour-wheeled two-horse dray on theIpswich Road.

Class

The other side of the coin is moreapplicable to Colchester as the railheadand principal town in the county. Everymain station, and a tidy few of thesmaller ones depending on theirnearness to the landed gentry, had ashort stub siding in a bay platform ateach end. This was the dock siding andwithin it could be loaded cattle, horses,or four-wheeled flat trucks with minimal

side-planking called ‘carriage trucks’.The approach roadways to the stationwere arranged to lead to the buffer stopsat the end of this siding, and flap platescould be hinged over to fill the gap.

The carriage truck stood ready at thestops and the carriage owned by theFirst Class passenger that brought himto the station was loaded on to it. If hewas travelling to his London in-townresidence, there would also be ahorse-box for his animals, and possibly afamily saloon if he was not alone. It wasnot unknown for him to remain in hiscarriage on the truck – a bit likeEurostar? Certainly there was space inthe horse-box for the groom and driver.

The travelling public, eg Second andThird Class, could only expect two orthree trains each way per day. Thebiggest revenue coming from themovement of freight made sure that thistype of train took priority. They did notalways move at speed. The ‘block trains’carrying just one commodity such ascoal, bricks, oil, or cement had yet to beinvented, and wagons were added ordropped off at many stations and sidingsalong the route. This left gaps in thetimetable and there existed a thrivingbusiness in the provision of privatetrains. Our First-Class horse-drawncarriage owner could make a deal with

the station master to supply alocomotive and wagons for his journeyand depart at a time that he foundconvenient, and so it was arranged.

Interestingly, complaints from carriageowners about the damage caused bycinders to the paint finish of theiremblems of status led to the design ofvans with end-doors, named by therailways as C.C.T.s (covered carriagetrucks), and still called that until theirdemise 120 years later after nationalmotor-rail services finally ceased.

Second Class had roofs, paddedseating, and sometimes lights – offeredon payment of a fee and hung on a hookby the door. In severe weather, foot-warmers and rugs could be ordered andpaid for at the start of the journey. ThirdClass had wooden planked seats,sometimes with backs, and wagons thatoften, but not always, had a roof. But inits wisdom, or more probably becausethe railways avoided carrying thecommon man if at all possible, thegovernment of the time ordered thatone train should run every day (exceptSunday) the full length of every railwayin each direction, stopping at everystation, and must have Third Classprovided. The ‘Parliamentary’ enteredrailway language and became anacronym for slow stopping trains.

Opening of the East Union Railway in 1846. Ilustration from the Illustrated London News. Elements of the picture areimaginary.

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William Wire was a watchmaker andjeweller with a shop on North Hill; hewas also an antiquarian and ‘dealer incuriosities’. He kept a journal in whichhe recorded Colchester events in themid 19th century. Today, this and otherdocuments by him, which have beenpreserved, are valuable sources ofinformation for local historians andarchaeologists. He also collectedantiquities that were then being found inlarge numbers as Victorian Colchestergrew. Like other antiquarians of thatperiod he appears not to have excavatedhimself, but visited sites where chancefinds were reported or might be found,such as the lengths of railway being builtaround Colchester.

The railway line from London started outas the Eastern Counties Railway, whichopened in 1838 with a service from thefirst terminus at Shoreditch to Stratford.Construction did not reach theColchester district until four years later.In June 1842 Wire records that he hadpurchased a medieval ring from arailway labourer who had found it nearthe viaduct being built at Stanway. Fromthen on Wire frequently visited theconsiderable earthworks, cuttings andembankments made by the navvies withpicks, shovels and wheelbarrows.

Sometimes he made purchases ofartifacts for modest sums, which herecorded in his journal, but often he

entered `Nothing found’. The navvieswould be encouraged to work quickly astheir task was to build a railway and notindulge in archaeological exploration.There was competition from otherwould-be purchasers and collectors,eager to acquire antiquities – just liketoday. Moreover, in so deep anexcavation as a railway cutting onewould expect any finds to be in theupper layers only and the number foundwould be small in relation to the quantityof soil moved.

On 23 August 1842 he notes that thefoundation for the station (North) was‘begun the day before. Nothing found’.On 30 August he found the navvies‘getting on with the station whichappears from its slight construction to bebut for a temporary purpose’; certainly aquick job because on 3 September thebuilding was ‘nearing completion’. (Thepremises have been much altered andenlarged since!) By the end of the yearhe had made another twenty-five visitsto the works at the station and west of it,including a Boxing Day visit to Stanwaywhere he walked across the new viaduct.He noted that the surface had beencovered with ‘a pitch-like substance’ forwater-proofing. Obviously it then lackeda track-bed, but the latter had been laidby 10 February 1843, for on that day a‘train drawn by an engine arrived at thestation.’

On 29 March the first train forpassengers to London ‘left atnine-o-clock this morning’. A greatnumber of people went to the station tosee trains arrive and depart. With thecompletion of the terminus Wire’s visitsbecame less frequent, temporarily.

However, on 15 June he ‘visited railway,found every accommodation fortravellers’, a comforting observation butmore was to come. Earlier, on 24November 1842 he mentions thedigging of foundations for a buildingnear the station, which became theVictoria Station Hotel. He included thesite in his other visits, but little seems tohave been found there. Opened inAugust 1844, the hotel was not arailway venture, being built by theengineering contractor Samuel MortonPeto. It failed because the Red Lion andThe Three Cups promoted transport upNorth Hill to their own more convenientestablishments in the town, away fromthe noise of the trains and nearer theamenities.

The Eastern Counties owned two and ahalf miles of land to the east of thestation as the beginning of an extension,but it was another company, the EasternUnion, which built the line to Ipswichand beyond. Wire walked to the stationon 3 March 1844 when labourers werelevelling the ground on the north side ofthe engine house which was on the east

An unusualrailway buff

William Wire was a Victorianantiquarian with an unusualinterest in the railway. JamesFawn dips into Wire’s diary todiscover how upset he wasbecause of what had been doneto the Roman gate on BalkerneHill, so that customers in theKing’s Head could watch thetrains coming in and out ofColchester’s new railway station.

25

side of the bridge crossing North Roadand this was the first of many visits to theextension works.

Wire concentrated on two cuttings thatmight be expected to produce morefinds. One just to the east of the stationwas the shallower, but it produced themost finds, mainly Roman cremationurns. Before the recent Turner Roaddevelopment, in which much of thiscutting disappeared, the Trustexcavated in the area and confirmed theexistence of a Roman cemetery. Theother deeper cutting leading beneaththe bridge under the Ipswich roadyielded some fossils, but disappointinglyfew artefact finds. Wire realised that onlythe surface layers would produce resultsand that the bulk of the cutting would besterile. Interestingly, he made a note ofthat vital element of modernarchaeology, the stratification; ‘threefeet artificial soil, four feet gravel, underwhich blue clay’.

While the construction to Ipswichcontinued Wire made his first railwayjourney to London. On 19 August 1844he caught the luggage train which leftColchester at 1.30 am and arrived atShoreditch (still no Liverpool Street) at 4am. Travelling in the small hours like thecharter flights of today, he paid fourshillings (20p). The return journey twodays later, also by luggage train from6.40 pm to 8.30 pm, was morecongenial. During his stay he visited theBritish Museum, the museum of theRoyal College of Surgeons, met CharlesRoach Smith, his friend and a notablearchaeologist of the day, and walkedthrough the Thames Tunnel built by thefamous Victorian engineers, theBrunels.

The day after his return he breakfastedwith a visitor at the Victoria Hotel whichhad opened on the previous Monday.On 11 June 1846 the line to Ipswichopened and The London IllustratedNews marked the occasion bypublishing an engraving of the openingtrain arriving at Colchester (see page23). It mistakenly described the hotel asthe station, ‘a handsome pile in the

Italian style’. The lower and humblerstation buildings were in fact on the rightof the scene, on either side of the tracks.Enlarged, the station has seen off thehotel, which became Essex Hall by1850, called with Victorian directnessthe Essex Asylum for Idiots, and wasdemolished in 1985 to make way forhousing.

Shortly before the opening of theIpswich line the Stour Valley Railwaystarted to construct its short branch fromthe main line to the Hythe, which laterformed part of the extension to thecoastal resorts as they developed in thelatter part of the century. From May1846 to the opening in March 1847,Wire recorded eight visits to the worksand procured some fossils, but nothingelse. This may have been because thebranch was embanked apart from thecutting to the north of East Gates andthe banked soil contained few finds.

Wire’s entry for 9 May 1843 expressedindignation. ‘When I was walking upBalkerne Hill I saw that a portion on theNorth side of the Balkon Fort had beendestroyed in order to build additionalrooms to the Kings Head Inn tocommand a view of the Railway. What apity that one of the best preservedremains of Roman times should bedestroyed to administer to the sensualpleasures as it may be considered only as

a decoy to induce persons to enter thehouse to drink.’ We now know that theremains were not those of a ‘Fort’, but ofthe ornamented west gateway to theRoman town.

Wire’s stricture on the destruction wasjustified and even today such concernfor the town’s monuments is necessary.If he had entered the inn, he would haveseen trains only on the Eastern Countiesline west of the station, and the VictoriaHotel would have at least partiallyobscured the latter. However, one maystill partake of one of the sensualpleasures at the inn now known as TheHole in the Wall. Unless you are acommuter, perhaps, you may enjoy asensual view of the railway, now morerestricted by buildings than it was inWire’s day. The trains are still to be seenwest of the station, albeit without aplume of steam, and indeed more of thestation may be now visible as theplatforms are longer.

Wire continued to record the town’sevents and to acquire ‘Curiosities’ untilhe died in 1857, but his interest inrailways had lapsed when the localworks were completed. While hismethods and practices would raiseeyebrows nowadays, we are indebted tohim for revealing to us as much ofmid-Victorian Colchester as he did.

Above left: the gable and windows in theHole in the Wall public house whichwere made in 1843 to provide a betterview of the railway.

Below left: the view of the station todayfrom the lower window of the pub.

Above right: the King’s Head (now theHole in the Wall) and the Balkerne Gateas they appeared before the alterationsof 1843.

Below right: the Roman wall and theKing’s Head between 1843 and 1858.

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Beyond the walls

St Botolph’s Quarter development

Much of Colchester’s imposing Romanand medieval town wall can still be seentoday encircling the 108 acres thatmake up the town’s historic core. Yeteven from its early days, Colchester’ssettlement was by no means confined tothe limits of the town’s defences. In thepast, fieldwork in the regions just beyondthe town walls has repaid thearchaeologists’ efforts handsomely withabundant remains of Roman and lateractivity, particularly in the areas outsidethe north and west gateways which arenow known to have contained extensiveRoman suburbs.

Opportunities to probe these areas seldomarise, but one such occurred recently atVineyard Gate, a three acre regionbetween Vineyard Street, Osborne Streetand St Botolph’s Street on thesouth-eastern fringe of the town centre.Since most of the area is built over, theinvestigation involved squeezing trenchesinto back yards, grass verges, car park

spaces, and on occasions even digging upwarehouse floors. In all, eighteenexploratory trenches were dug with the aimof learning more about the condition anddepth of early remains in this region, whichlies immediately beyond the southernstretch of the town wall. The main gatewayin this part of the town was the South Gatewhich once stood in nearby St Botolph’sStreet and through which much of thetown’s commercial traffic bound for theriver quays has passed since Roman times.

In Vineyard Street car park the trenchingexposed parts of the Roman andmedieval defensive ditches in front ofthe town wall, as well as nearbyindications of Roman building activityfrom the first century onward. To thesouth, trenches in properties along thelength of Osborne Street producedstriking evidence of changes in groundlevel over the last two thousand years. Inthe central part of the street, Romanclay floors, slots and post-holes werefound to survive to within a metre of themodern surface with later Roman pits

and tips of refuse on higher ground tothe west. In contrast, on lower groundnear the eastern end of Osborne Street,the water table prevented excavation tothe earliest levels. Trenches here weredug to depths of up to 3.5 m, reachingonly a short way into the medieval levels.Although difficult to excavate, thewaterlogged ground conditions resultedin the recovery of well-preserved timbersand leatherwork belonging to themedieval and post-medieval periods.

The work was funded by ColchesterBorough Council and the projectmanaged by Oxford ArchaeologicalAssociates Ltd. The results will be takeninto account in developing a strategy forregeneration in the St Botolph’s Quarterof the town.

Carl Crossan(CAT)

An evaluation trench at the west end ofOsborne Street.

27

Butchers inSt Botolph’sStreetPhilip J Wise

Colchester Museums

One of the most interesting results of theTrust’s recent excavations within the StBotolph’s Quarter has been theevidence for how life was lived in thispart of Colchester over many centuries.It is clear that since the Middle Ages thisarea outside the south gate of the townhas been the home of craftsmen andtraders.

Earlier excavations during the con-struction of the Osborne Street car parkhad revealed the remains of a shoe-maker’s workshop dating to the yearsafter 1300. The 2004 dig added to thispicture of medieval craft activity bydiscovering large numbers of animalhorn cores. These were the waste leftover when the outer layer of horn hadbeen removed. The resulting hornsheets were used as window panes orthe translucent sides of lanterns.Evidence of the working of horn in the18th century was also found, althoughby then glass had replaced horn as themain material for window panes. Hornsheets were still used for lanterns,however, as well as small items such ascombs and ink wells.

However one particular discovery by theTrust has led to a detailed study of thehistory of a property in St Botolph’sStreet. The remains of a building,probably dating to the 18th century,were found beneath the yard to the rearof Allen and Son’s butcher’s shop at no.13. This had a foundation constructedof re-used Roman building stone and aclay floor. Remarkably there is survivingdocumentary evidence which sheds lighton this building and the surroundingarea.

Amongst the deeds of the land nowoccupied by Allen’s butcher’s shop is amortgage agreement dated 17 August1757. The agreement was madebetween Mrs Elizabeth Goslin, a widow,and Mr Samuel Wall, who is describedas a gentleman. It is stated that MrsGoslin’s late husband was a Stephen

Goslin whose occupation is given as afellmonger, that is one who preparesand sells animal skins. This in itself isinteresting as it confirms that the areawas being used for the production ofanimal products in the 18th century ashad been suggested by the discovery ofthe horn cores.

However, the 1757 mortgage refers toan earlier indenture of 29 January 1752,now lost, again between ElizabethGoslin and Samuel Wall. In this,Elizabeth Goslin in return for £80 sold toSamuel Wall ‘those six dwelling housesin Buttolph Street… Four of which werein the several tenures of JamesBrockwell, James Inman, BenjaminKnock and the widow Eagle and were inthe several occupations of JamesBrockwell, William Boys the Younger,the widow Knock and Hannah Eslin andthe other two in the several tenures ofJohn Dykes yarn maker and [William]Barrell and in the occupation of JohnDykes only...’.

It is clear that in the mid 18th century,the site was subdivided into severalproperties occupied by artisans orwidows of artisans, although only onetrade, that of yarn maker, is given. Thebuilding remains found in the butcher’syard probably represent one of those ‘sixdwelling houses’.

A further document of 1837 containsfascinating details about the site at theend of the 18th century. It refers to thepurchase of the property in 1799 by aStephen Matthewman, who is describedas a butcher, and provides the earliestreference to the use of the site for abutcher’s shop. As well as a shop, thedocument lists ’outhouses, a bullockyard, slaughter houses, stables, pigg-eries and a cattle pound’. There is also adescription of the existing passage to theright of Allen’s butcher’s shop which wastherefore already in existence in 1799.The alley could be closed off from StBotolph’s Street by the ‘great gates’.

This 1837 document also includes adetailed map not only showing thelayout of the buildings to the rear andsides of 13 St Botolph’s Street but alsothe names of the various occupants. Anumber of the buildings shown on the1837 map still survive, especially aroundthe rear yard. The adjacent properties inSt Botolph’s Street were occupied in1837 by, amongst others, WilliamDearn, an ironmonger and JamesHitchcock, a plumber and glazier.

Lastly the 1837 document is actually asale agreement between Mary Ann, thedaughter of Stephen Matthewman, andher husband Thomas Challis andanother butcher whose name wasDaking Bear. Daking Bear was inbusiness until the 1860s and after thatthe shop at 13 St Botolph’s Street wasowned by several other butchers until itwas purchased by the Allen family in1930.

The existing Allen’s butchers shop istherefore on a very historic site and onewhich has been associated with animalproducts for many years. Although theshop fronting onto St Botolph’s Streetprobably dates to the early 19th century,some of the ancillary buildings to therear and the side passage are over twohundred years old. There has been abutcher’s on the site since 1799 andbefore this animal skins were preparedand sold. Here is remarkable evidenceof continuity.

Acknowledgement

I am very grateful to Mr John Allen forthe opportunity to study the title deeds of13, St Botolph Street.

St Botolph’s Street in 1906. The shopto the left of the tram was to becomeAllen’s butcher shop. PhotographColchester Museums.

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Located next to St James’s church at thetop of East Hill, East Hill House wasamong the grandest of GeorgianColchester’s residences with groundswhich originally extended over six acresinside the south-east corner of the towncentre. Although now reduced in size,the grounds still stretch south as far asthe Priory Street corner of the town wall,where a former playing field has nowbeen earmarked as the site for aproposed visual arts centre as part of theregeneration scheme for the StBotolph’s Quarter of the town. To helpassess the archaeological impact of thenew building, Colchester BoroughCouncil commissioned a geophysicalsurvey of the area by Stratascan viaOxford Archaeological Associates, thenengaged the Trust to dig nine smallexploratory trenches within the footprint

for the planned arts building. Since thearea is a scheduled ancient monument,the aim at this early stage was to keepground disturbance to a minimum bydigging down to expose the top ofburied Roman levels and go no furtheronce the depth of sensitive levels wasestablished. The site is some distanceaway from the nearest medieval andlater street frontages, so it came as nosurprise to find that the area for the mostpart had been left as open ground afterthe end of the Roman period. Afterremoving the medieval and later soils,the Roman levels were generally foundto lie at depths of between 40 and 60cm, but in places were as little as 15 to20 cm below the surface due to theeffects of modern garden landscaping.The exposed material included spreadsof Roman building debris including wall

plaster, brick and tile, also at least onerobbed wall foundation and possibly agravelled area at the eastern side of thesite. At present these are mere glimpses,but if the development materializes, itcould offer a rare opportunity to learnmore about this corner of the early town.The aim of the work was to provideinformation to help in the planning ofthe arts centre to ensure thatdisturbance to the buried archaeo-logical remains is kept to an acceptableminimum.

Carl Crossan (CAT)

New arts centre

Visualisation of the proposed newvisual arts facilty designed by RafaelVinoly Architects.

Exploratory investigations have taken place onthe site of the proposed visual arts facility so thatthe archaeological remains can be taken intoaccount in an early stage of the planning of theproject.

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On 11 October a statue of St Helenawas presented to Colchester Town Hallfor display in the Mayor’s Parlour. Thestatue had originally been carved inplane wood by Donald Simpson in 1950for Colchester Youth Hostel which hadnewly opened in East Bay House. TheYouth Hostel closed in 1997 and thestatue was given to Colchester Mus-eums to save it. Before its presentationto the Town Hall the statue was carefullyrestored to its full glory by the very manwho had created it.

St Helena is part of the creation myththat arose in the early Middle Ages toexplain the Roman ruins at Colchesterand the name of the town itself. Thereare a number of slight variations on themyth, but a popular version was asfollows. King Coel founded Colchesterin AD 219 and later became ruler ofBritain. In 260 the Roman general,Constantius, sailed from Spain andbesieged Colchester for three years. Theconflict was settled by the offering ofCoel’s daughter, Helen (or Helena), inmarriage to Constantius. Their son wasborn in Colchester and became the first

Christian emperor, Constantine theGreat. Helen, in later life, made apilgrimage to the Holy Land where shemiraculously discovered fragments ofthe True Cross and the graves of thethree kings which elevated her tosainthood and gave Colchester thesymbols on the Borough arms. As withall good myths, there are elements oftruth within it. For instance, Helena wasindeed the mother of Constantine, butin reality came from the area of modernday Croatia and had no links withColchester.

The myth was strongly embedded by the12th century when it was recorded byHenry of Huntingdon in his history of theEnglish. Its most striking medievalrecord is in the charter granted toColchester in 1413 by Henry V. Here StHelena appears as the patron saint ofColchester gazing out from within theilluminated initial letter of the charterand with the earliest known represent-ation of the Borough arms below her.

The Town Hall is the physical embodi-ment of the civic pride that fired lateVictorian Colchester. So, it is no surprise

that St Helena is part of the rôle call offigures from the town’s past thatdecorate the building. She isrepresented in stained glass in theCouncil Chamber and most prominentlyin the statue atop the tower that waspaid for in its entirety by James Paxman,Colchester’s most successful industrial-ist. The more modest statue that nowadorns the Mayor’s Parlour is testimonyto how a good myth has become areality that still shapes our actions today.

St Helena, carved and restored byDonald Simpson.

Topping out the TownHall, 1902. A roll call ofColchester’s civicdignitaries on high withSt Helena. (From left toright, Gurney Benham, CCThompson (representingthe architect), JamesPaxman, Claude EgertonGreen, Wilson Marriage).

St Helena and Colchester’sCreation Myth

By Tom HodgsonCurator of Social History, Colchester Museums

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White Canons andblacksmiths atBeeleigh Abbey

Lying in a quiet rural location west ofMaldon is Beeleigh Abbey, a solid andcomfortable Tudor country house. Butappearances can be deceptive. TheTudor house contains fragments of amuch earlier and much grander building– the medieval Abbey of Maldon (latercalled Beeleigh Abbey), founded inabout 1180 as a Premonstratensian(White Canon) house.

The White Canons combined thecontemplative with the active religiouslife, and were engaged in the cele-bration of the liturgy, and in preaching,mission work and education. Laterrecords show that there was a Children’sChamber in the abbey, and it was herethat young children given to the church(oblates) may have slept. Among theirnumber was the important but virtuallyunknown Saint Roger of Beeleigh, whorose to prominence as Archdeacon ofColchester and later Bishop of Londonand was a witness to the re-issue ofMagna Carta. After his death in 1241,St Roger was buried in St Paul’sCathedral, but his heart was kept atBeeleigh in a ‘heart shrine’ which wasimportant enough to have been visitedby royalty. Roger had been canonised by1249.

Along with many other religious houses,the original Beeleigh Abbey ceased toexist in 1536, when it was closed downunder the Act of Dissolution and itslands and properties seized by theCrown (Henry VIII). Many of ourColchester religious houses sufferedbadly during the Dissolution of theMonasteries. St Botolph’s Priory stillstands as a romantic ruin, and St John’sAbbey Gatehouse is intact, but theAbbey Church of St John and CrouchedFriars (on Crouch Street) havedisappeared almost without trace. Many

dissolved religious houses (Beeleighamong them) were rebuilt or adapted ascountry houses – Audley End, and SirRichard Rich’s Leez Priory are notableEssex examples.

So, what (if anything) of Roger’s homechurch can still be seen? Fragments ofthe east range of the abbey cloister arestill visible in the Tudor structure, butdue to the near total destruction of thesite after Dissolution, the full layout ofthe original abbey is not known. Theaccompanying figure shows a hypo-thetical abbey layout superimposed overthe present day Beeleigh Abbey.

Excavation on the abbey site proper hasbeen extremely limited, but there hasbeen excavation in the meadow west ofthe abbey. The year 2004 marked thefourth season of excavation by theMaldon Archaeological and HistoricalGroup. In 2003 and 2004 the work wasdirected by Howard Brooks of theColchester Archaeological Trust andTrevor Ennis of the Essex County CouncilField Archaeology Unit. Evaluationtrenching in 2001 and excavation in2003-4 had uncovered the ground planof a medieval hall house dating from the15th century or earlier, and pulled downat the Reformation. It consisted of theusual medieval plan of parlour, hall,cross-passage and service end, withother rooms (such as a stair tower andpossible cess chute) added later. Itsrelationship to the abbey was unclear,as the precinct boundaries have notbeen discovered. The most convincingexplanation is that it belonged to thealmoner, the officer responsible fordispensing alms and charity, and whosehouse was normally at the edge of theprecinct.

The plan for 2004 was to complete theexcavation of outbuildings adjacent to

this house, and to explore as much ofthe meadow as possible. A resistivitysurvey carried out by the group identifiedseven areas which looked promising.These were then tested with trialtrenches. Three were not very pro-ductive, containing only gravel surfaces,dumped building material and areas ofburning. A fourth trench revealedkitchen waste from the adjacent abbeykitchen (see hypothetical position ofkitchen on accompanying figure). In theremaining trenches, however, newbuildings were discovered, and inanother a brick clamp was found.

One of the new buildings was to thenorth of the hall house and in line with itand its outbuildings. Beneath a largequantity of tile rubble, walls made ofroof tile laid at an angle were found. Inthe north-east corner close to the wall,there were two very well used hearthsmade of roof tile set on edge. Acombination of burnt material, greatquantities of iron slag, nails and othersmall iron objects indicate that thebuilding was a smithy. The use of amagnet confirmed this when it pickedup debris scattered from the hammeringof objects on the anvil. The relationshipof this smithy to the buildings to thesouth is obscured by a later ditch whichseparates them. But in view of itsproximity and similar alignment, itwould be logical to conclude that thehouse belonged to the abbey’s smithrather than the almoner. The house andbuildings fronted on to the lane down tothe abbey mill, and so must have beenat the edge of the monastic complex,presumably representing part of ahamlet that had grown up around theprecinct.

In a trench to the east of the hall houseand close to the west side of the abbey

Howard Brooks of CAT andDavid Andrews of Essex CountyCouncil explain the backgroundto the latest discoveries atBeeleigh Abbey near Maldon inEssex.

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cloister, a wall made of roof tile and agravel surface were found. Furtherstripping of the topsoil revealed that thiswall was fragmentary, having been cutby a later building. Initially, the latterseemed to be 5m wide by 9m long, butsubsequent investigation showed it to beat least 18m long. It was timber built,with footings of brick levelled up withroof tile, and datable to the 15thcentury. It was divided into two by apartition wall, against which was a verylarge hearth which must have had atimber chimney. There were traces of amortar floor; unusually, the mortarseems to have been carried on up thewalls as a thick layer of white plaster.Because the large hearth must havebeen used for cooking, and the buildingwas located so close to the abbey, it isthought to have been a monastic bake-house or brewhouse.

In many ways, the biggest surprise wasin a trench at the north end of the field,not far from the river Chelmer. This wasidentified as an area of potential interestby an elderly lady who had kept horsesand donkeys on the field in the timewhen Christina Foyle lived at the abbey.Her husband had tried to build a shed inthis area, but gave up because therewas so much rubble in the soil. Thisproved to be spreads of brick rubble,much of it burnt and vitrified. Excavationshowed that there were a series of east-west ‘stripes’ of brick and charcoal. PatRyan, the historian of Essex brick,concluded that it was a brick clamp.Unlike a kiln, which is a fixed building, aclamp is a way of firing bricks bycarefully building them up into arectangular structure with the fuelincorporated into it, and then settinglight to it. The ‘stripes’ represented thetunnels within the clamp whichcontained the bundles of faggots.Clamps were a common method offiring bricks, and indeed were used intomodern times for London stock bricks,but very few have been found in ex-cavations. Finds associated with theclamp were few, but suggest that itdated from after the Reformation andwas used to make bricks for the Tudormansion into which the abbey wasconverted.

The picture that has emerged of themeadow in the past is of a service areafor the main abbey buildings. Close tothe abbey, there was a kitchen. Further

away, there was a smithy and a housewhich probably formed part of settle-ment at the edge of the precinct, thoughthe precise boundaries of this remainelusive. After the Reformation, the areabecame a builder’s yard. Material fromthe dismantled buildings was dumpedthere. In particular, a very large quantityof window glass has been found, someof it painted. In the northern corner ofthe field, bricks for the Tudor mansionwere burnt in a clamp. Later the areawas tidied up and formed part of thewalled enclosures around the house.The wall in Tudor bricks along the laneto the mill survives in part today. Thestudy of the pottery and other artefactsfrom the excavation will provide detailedinformation which should help showhow accurate this picture is, and alsoclarify aspects of it.

The work was made possible by agenerous grant from the HeritageLottery Fund, and also the help and co-operation of the owners of the site, Mrand Mrs C. Foyle. Much information onthe White Canons and St Roger is takenfrom Stephen P. Nunn’s St Roger ofBeeleigh (Maldon Archaeological andHistorical Group, 2001).

Above. Site plan showing house,smithy, and kitchen with suggestedoutline of abbey over existingbuildings.

Below left. the brick clamp.

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Spoil HeapBy Kate Orr (CAT)

Dead but not gone

Cremated and inhumed, Roman andmedieval, urban and rural – remains ofthe dead cannot be avoided. Furtherexcavations were carried out at BirchSand and Gravel Quarry this year. Thiswas near Maldon Road, to the south oflast year’s excavations of a Bronze Agecemetery (CA 17). The contractors werestripping soil near the spot where CAThad identified two Roman buildingsthrough fieldwalking in 1992. There wasa small number of Roman cremations,some of which were without urns, plusone pit containing pyre-related debris.These people living and working in thecountryside did not have largecemeteries, but buried their dead in thefields and by trackways.

Something for the journey

Most of the burials that have beenrecorded have been from Roman urbancemeteries especially the cemetery tothe west of Colchester. At 25 EndsleighCourt, contractors building an extensiondisturbed four urned cremations. At 21West Lodge Road, three disturbedcremations were revealed duringgroundworks for the extension of thehouse. One cremation contained debrisfrom the pyre, deliberately depositedaround the urn, for reasons that we canonly guess at. A mirror had beendeposited inside the urn, together withthree coins which had been placedreverse upwards. It is likely that this is thegrave of a child and that the coins weredeliberately chosen because the imageson the reverse were believed to act asguardians to protect a child during theirjourney to the underworld, and to paythe mythical ferryman. Next door, atHandford House, analysis of the coinsfrom cremations has shown a similarburial rite.

Body and soul

At 15 West Lodge Road, Roman burials(two cremated and one not) wereexposed during an evaluation. This ispart of Taylor’s West Lodge Estate. At 3Beverley Road, one inhumed burial wasdisturbed during works to widen a cellar.

The former St Mary’s Hospital site is stillgiving up its secrets; a watching brief is

being maintained during the ‘BalkerneHeights’ development. Large fragmentsof two 4th-century lead coffins plus onecremation have turned up. It is thoughtthat the lead coffins were not in situwhen disturbed as they were not foundwith any human bone. This transitionfrom cremation of the body to un-burntburials, sometimes in coffins, reflects thechange in tradition, and possibly belief,starting in the 3rd century AD. It mayhave to do with an emerging belief in theresurrection of the body.

A place by the sea

Well-heeled Romans who could affordfancy burial rites also lived in WestMersea. A previously known Romanmausoleum from the town wasinvestigated by the Trust at the end of2003. The evaluation, in conjunctionwith aerial photographs, allowed itsposition in a back garden to bepinpointed and also identified the depthand the condition of the survivingremains.

Crouching friar, hidden foundation

Two evaluation trenches were dug at38-40 Crouch Street, next-door to CashConverters. This is where the remains ofthe medieval Friary of the ‘CrouchedFriars’ has been excavated previously.Several phases of activity were revealedincluding burials, which could beRoman or those of the Friars some1,000 years later. Roman and medievalfoundations were also exposed plusrobbed walls and rubble spreads frommore recent buildings. The later activitymay relate to the demolition in the early18th century of the former residence ofSir Harbottle Grimston. Grimston’shouse had become the town workhouseafter being badly damaged during theSiege of Colchester in 1648.

Sacred and profane

At the Castle pub on Colchester HighStreet, a new bar extension was recentlybuilt. Customers sit above the buriedremains of an arcade which stood on thesouth side of the precinct of the Templeof Claudius. During groundworks, theRoman building material was encount-

ered as well as a hard surface at 1.5mdepth which obstructed the piles. This isnot the first time the precinct or‘temenos’ wall has been seen underproperties along this stretch of HighStreet.

Medieval life

Information about medieval occupationalong East Hill and East Street has alsocome to light. Speed’s early 17thcentury map of Colchester showsproperties along this road. Since the lastissue of CA, the renovation work to‘Charlie Brown’s’ has been completed.Whilst contractors were digging out newfoundations, the Trust found clay floorsand burnt occupation layers dating tothe 12th or 13th century. These pre-date the 14th century open hall and mayrepresent a detached kitchen to anearlier building.

At 83-88 East Hill, a peg tile and mortarwall or plinth to a medieval building wasexposed in one of the footings dug fornew houses. Next to it were waterloggedmorticed and tenoned timbers thatappeared to line a cellar or tank. Oystershells were scattered in the surroundingsoil. Richard Shackle from the LocalStudies Library has recorded thesetimbers and suggests they may havelined an oyster pit, which would havebeen used by residents of a house onEast Hill.

Small handled Roman mirror fromWest Lodge Road dating to the secondhalf of the 1st century AD andprobably made in Nijmegen ,Netherlands

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The Friends of Colchester Archaeo-logical Trust was founded in 1977 tokeep interested members of the public intouch with the work of the Trust in andaround the historic town of Colchester.The membership in 2004 numbersabout 450 households, mostly inColchester and north Essex, but withsome as far afield as Wales, Scotland,Germany and the USA.

Every January the Friends meet to hearabout the excavations and other workthat took place the previous year, and in2004 there were talks in the sanctuary ofthe Lion Walk Congregational Churchon the sites at Handford House,Colchester Garrison, Charlie Brown’s,and Beeleigh Abbey near Maldon.

The Church also provided the venue fora session in March where Steve Benfieldof the Trust taught members how toidentify particular types of Romanpottery, such as colour-coated wares,samian ware, and mortaria, the vesselswith gritty bases used in foodpreparation. Friends worked hard tomaster the identifying characteristics ofthe forms and fabrics, and the sessionproved to be so popular that it will berepeated late in 2005 or in 2006 andwill be extended from a two-hour to afour-hour event.

In May a coach party of members wereshown around some of the lesser-knownmedieval monastic and hospitalbuildings in Canterbury associated withpilgrims visiting the shrine of St Thomasà Beckett, as well as the castle, townwalls, and the sites of some Romanbuildings. The tour was led by JennyWatson of Ashford School, who thentook us on to visit Julieberries Graves, aNeolithic long barrow, and Chilham, ahill-top village that has managed topreserve its medieval character with acentral wide market area surrounded bystone-built shops and houses, and witha castle at one end facing the church atthe other.

In late June, the Friends visitedHadleigh, where they first had a guidedwalk around some of the mostinteresting parts of the town, which isrich in well-preserved late medieval andearly post-medieval houses, as well asthe fine St Mary’s Church, the CornExchange, and the Deanery Tower. Teawas then provided in the beautful timberGuildhall, which has a lovely garden

filled with old-style roses and herbs. Theday ended with a tour of the Guildhallitself, which has served in its time as ameeting-place for the medieval craftguilds, an Assembly Room for Regencyperiod balls, and a corset factory; it iscurrently used for weddings and otherfunctions and also houses some counciloffices.

On a bitterly cold day in late September,the Friends went to King’s Lynn, whichenabled them to admire the staminaand determination of the town’sfishermen and merchants as they sailedthe chilly waters of the Wash and theNorth Sea. The town is fortunate inhaving managed to avoid much of themodern development that has affectedother historic towns in Britain, andrejoices in a wealth of fine old buildings,including the Custom House, StMargaret’s Church, the old Gaol House,and many merchants’ warehouses,including one built by the HanseaticLeague, as well as many domestichouses. The Friends were taken on atour of the best-preserved parts of thetown by the town guides, and were leftfeeling that they had only scraped thesurface of this wonderful place.

The Friends’ annual churches trip isalways popular, and November 2004was no exception. The theme was

churches containing medievalCoggeshall brick, and the first stop wasthe chapel of St Nicholas at LittleCoggeshall. St Nicholas was the capellaextra portas, the chapel outside thegates, for Coggeshall Abbey, is highlydistinctive, having its windows, quoins,and other features built with largelocally-made bricks which rank amongsome of the earliest made in medievalEngland. The next church was HolyTrinity at Bradwell-juxta-Coggeshall,which also uses Coggeshall brick in itsfabric and has the bonus of somebeautiful early 14th-century wallpaintings and other interesting features.Finally, the Friends went to All Saints atGreat Braxted, where the Trust hadearlier done some excavation inadvance of new building work, andended up for tea at Perrywood’s Nurseryat Tiptree.

Just before Christmas the Friends wereable to visit part of the excavations at theGarrison development, where they wereshown round the site, had a chance tolook at some of the finds and were ableto visit one of the old stable blocks. Thepart of the site open for visiting at thatpoint was the cemetery on the Butt Roadside of the stable blocks.

Nina Crummy

Friends ofCAT

Friends of CAT at Great Braxted church.

Where Ben Hurwent wrongThe famous chariot race in the1959 Hollywood film Ben Hur ismisleading on several accountsnot least because the high-borntribune Messala and Ben Hurhimself, who though a Jew wasalso the adopted son of aRoman admiral, would neverhave been able to take part.Messala’s career and socialstatus would have been intatters, and whether he won orlost it would have been politicaldamaging to the Romans; if hewon it would have angered thelocals, if he lost they would havebeen all too happy!

The film shows a stone-builtcircus on the Roman patternmade famous by the CircusMaximus, but race-courses inthe east at that period werebased on the much simplerGreek hippodrome, a large flatspace with turning posts. BenHur has nine teams racing, butRoman-style racing was at thatperiod always based on the fourfactions, Blues, Greens, Redsand Whites, so there might befour, eight or twelve teams, butnever nine. This was not

necessarily so in the east, whereprivately-owned teams might bedriven by hired-in professionalcharioteers, much likehorse-racing today, but then it isnot an eastern-style race that isshown in the film.

The horses driven by Ben Hurare supposedly Arabs acquiredfrom a Bedouin sheikh, but theBedouin rode camels until manyhundreds of years later, andArab horses had not beendeveloped then. The best circushorses came from North Africaand Spain, and were probablymost like today’s Andalusiansand Lusitanos; some successfulanimals also came fromCappadocia in Asia Minor, fromGreece and from Sicily.However, by chance the realhorses driven in the film werefairly similar to the race horsesof the period as they wereLipizzaners from Yugoslavia, abreed much cross-bred with theancient Iberian strain fromSpain.

Of the nine teams starting therace in Ben Hur, six crash andare written off. However, aspecialist in Roman spectatorsports has studied the filmcarefully and noticed that four

teams pass the finishing line – amiracle! In the 1926 version ofthe film about a hundred died,but despite the crashes in 1959animal welfare was taken muchmore seriously and there wereno fatalities. The vicious axleblades used by Messala to cutthe wheel-spokes on the otherchariots are pure Hollywood andwould never have been allowedin a real race – the whole systemwas arranged so that all theentrants had an equal chance.

Finally, the chariots used in thefilm were completely wrong andmade the job of the horsesmuch more difficult. Instead of alightweight wood and leatheraffair, they were made of steeltubing and thick carved wood,more like the currus triumphalis(triumphal chariot) that was builtfor display rather than speed.They had an iron axle and steelfloor, weighing in total about 0.4of a metric tonne compared tothe 25-30 kilograms of a realRoman racing chariot. Inconsequence, the 1959 teamscould only manage to run a lapat a time, four times a day, withrests in between, whereas theRoman chariot teams ran sevenlaps in about 11 minutes.

A team of four horses shown on a pottery

jar from Colchester. Note the small low-set

wheels and the bound-up tails of the

horses. Colchester Archaeological Trust

would like to express its gratitude to the

Department of Prehistory and Europe at

The British Museum, who kindly allowed

the photograph to be reproduced here.

Eureka!A Roman

circus

The railwaycomes to

Colchester

Beeleigh Abbey

News ofexcavations in

Colchester

Beyond the wall:Osbourne street

quarter

£2. 95Issue no 18 2005

Colchester Archaeological Trust