Excavation of Roman Building at Bleachfield Street

1 Site E, the S most plot of Bleachfield Street Allotments, was brought to notice by the poverty of the crops on a broad strip running obliquely across the plot. A series of eleven trenches revealed a very complex history. A road running roughly E-W, 4.6 m wide, constructed of pebble and gravel 0.3m to 0.35m thick, had been laid on turf containing late C1 pottery. Subsequently a large building had been built over the road, not inconsistent with a villa of ‘corridor’ type with foundations cut into the road. At a later period the foundations were completely robbed. At the extreme end of the site, below the robbed levels, substantial well-built walls gave the angle of the building with remains of a stoke arch and C4 material. A recent excavation has disturbed the hypocaust. This was probably connected with an earlier excavation (PRN 521).
2 Listed as site no 23.
3 Cards record Samian, bone objects, and a bronze object from near the skeleton.
4 Bleachfield Street, foundations of a masonry building and metalling, probably of the road towards Stratford.