Site of Romano British Cemetery at Priory Road, Warwick

1 Near the Priory are old sandstone quarries in which the rock has been quarried vertically to about 9m. In the exposed face of this escarpment ‘several curious excavations may be seen’. In some of these were found pieces of burned bone mixed with ashes and charcoal, supporting the idea that the remains of human bodies had been deposited in these recesses after cremation.
2 Further excavations have been made on the S side of the Priory Hill. When the earth was cleared away it was found that the rock had been honeycombed by a ‘series of rude openings’ containing ashes and pottery. All but one of the cremations were destroyed before recording, and all but two or three of the urns destroyed. The recorded cremation was ‘about 0.9m from the ground, 0.3m wide and 0.8m high. The keuper sandstone had been ‘rudely’ hollowed out to a depth of 0.5m – 0.9m and was filled with burnt material, surrounding a plain grey pot. The pot was broken and burned bones were scattered around. The pot appeared to be Romano British.
3 Traces of quarrying along the N side of Priory Road probably indicate the location of the sandstone quarries in which the Romano British cremations were found.
4 OS Card.