Roman archaeology

by Jean Sheehan

Several years ago members of Redgrave History Group field walked all the fields available at the time in Redgrave, and found two sites showing occupation by Romano British people, probably farmsteads. We were lucky to have Stanley West as our leader who had recently retired as the county archaeologist for Suffolk for many years. We were disappointed not to find a Roman Villa with mosaic floors and Samian pottery. However we were excited to find two sites with a large area of light grey unglazed Roman pottery, on each site. We only found one tiny fragment of red glazed Samian ware from Gaul over the whole of Redgrave, obviously the inhabitants were not very wealthy.

Stanley had been greatly influenced by Basil Brown as a child, whose greatest achievement was the discovery of the Anglo Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo. Basil had much more success with Roman sites in this area than we did. I recently came across an old newspaper photograph of Basil with the remains of a Roman kiln which he was excavating in Garden House Lane, Rickinghall. There is a date on the cutting of Wednesday October 16th, but unfortunately no year. Chris Durrant says in his recent book on Basil Brown, that he discovered a Roman Kiln in Calke Wood on Christmas Day, 1934. Whilst excavating a Saxon site in 1965 Basil discovered Roman foundations and a Roman chalk floor, as well as bricks, tiles and bones.

Several other Roman kilns were found fairly close to Wattisfield where Watson's Pottery continue to make pottery although the clay used no longer comes from this area. A quern was found in Pound Field, Rickinghall, as well as a complete bowl and urn which were taken to Ipswich Museum.

A colony of edible snails (Helix Pomatia) were living in a lime pit close to the borders of Hinderclay well into the twentieth century. They were believed to have originally been brought here by the Romans.

Before the Rickinghall/Botesdale bypass was constructed Suffolk County Council archaeologists field walked the route and found a great number of pieces of course grey Roman pottery which they attributed to pottery from Wattisfield, having a very high mica content. The remains of a female headless Roman skeleton were found when an evaluation trench was dug at the Rickinghall end. There were signs on the neck bones that the body had been decapitated probably with a small knife but it is believed that this was after death. The skull may have been buried at the feet end of the grave, but this had been destroyed, probably by the mechanical digger. Although a few coins were found along the bypass route they were all in a bad condition.

Although we now have no visible evidence of Roman buildings in these villages, Romano British people were certainly living here.