Site of Romano British Settlement on Grimstock Hill

1 The Iron Age settlement on the site of the Romano-Celtic temple probably continued into the Roman period (see PRN 5130). In addition salvage recording indicated Roman settlement in the area to the S of the well and bath house. This was salvage recorded in March 1979 before the main season of excavation began. Examination of the pottery indicates a date in the earlier part of the 2nd century. Hand-made pottery which is common in the pre-temple activity is absent, which may indicate that these areas carry on the sequence from the pre-temple layers. This may indicate a migration of settlement from the N area when the temple was constructed.
2 Those features which contained pottery of an Iron Age type, also contained Romanized pottery and tile. It is possible that a number of ring gullies, for instance, date from the early Roman period (p.31). The replacement of round buildings by rectilinear ones took place over time, the buildings to the south of the temple, whatever their exact date and purpose, mostly having a rectangular ground-plan. The settlement is compared to ‘typical’ rural settlements, a series of farms set alongside a road, unenclosed. At Coleshill the temple was not in any literal sense central to the settlement and expansion, when it first occurred, left the temenos on the very edge of settlement surrounded by fields.