Untitled - Council for British Archaeology

5ROMMO-3RITISHDORCHESTER, Oxfordshire - G.H. Hargreaves, R.P.F. Parker and A.W.F. BoarderThis note gives the results of a field survey carried out with theobject of locating the Roman road directed SE out of Dorchester (Fig.2 ).In 1903 Codrington suggested a Roman road from Dorchester on the line of theA 423 to Benson, which has Roman settlement. Margary designated it Road160e and indicated a route continuing via Nettlebed (see Fig. 3) to Henley,but no direct evidence of this road has been reported W of Henley. Road160e from Silchester has been considered to connect with it over Old StreetFord, and Road 168 (Lower Icknield Way) must also connect to Dorchester fromthe SE. In the few literature references to the Roman crossing of the Thameinto Dorchester this is assumed to be at the site of the medieval bridge,but this location is unlikely because it is not closely dominated either bythe C2nd ramparts or by any fort represented by the C1st military buildingswithin them reported by Frere and by M. Hassall.In Overy Field N of A 423 is an 800 yd. long broad, raised line visiblefrom as far as the top of the Sinodun Hills and having a form, location anddirection consistent with the agger of a Roman road leading from a Thamecrossing directly out of the walled town. Careful measurement showed it -would accord with an alignment sighted by a Roman surveyor directly betweena high point adjacent to Hassall's military buildings and the edge of a highplateau at Ewelme Park in the Chilterns some 8 miles away. Study of the topographyon this alignment indicated that a Roman surveyor setting out a roadbased on it would diverge N from it at a small angle to ascend the RabbitsHill spur E of Benson, and the location of a hypothetical secondary alignmentwas deduced accordingly.An opportunity to testithis hypothesis was provided by the widening ofa N-S drainage channel close to the boundary between Warborough and Benson,which left a W bank with a clean sloping face uninterrupted for more than amile northwards from Elm Bridge. On this face, at Gallows teaze, exactly onthe postulated secondary alignment and 150 yd. N of the direct line betweenthe sighting points, was found 18 in. below the modern surface a 6 in. thick30 ft. long layer of flat limestone pieces surfaced with sandy gravel and ona thin foundation layer of debris laid directly on loam. This accords withthe section of a 28 ft. Roman road. It was the only thing of its kind onthe whole length of the face.Apart from a low agger showing a few limestone pieces in the arable justW of the section, there is no surface sign of the road between Oatlands ,and.Potters Lane, but alongside the secondary alignment are a burial long suspectedto be Roman, a field suggestively called Blacklands, and a Roman coinfind. By Potters Lane the course of the road in an area of old gravelpits isuncertain, but what appears to be its continuation has been found by a gaspipeline trench at the foot of the escarpment as packed flint-and-pebblelaid on the chalk and buried under 3 ft. of loam. It lies beyond the 14 endof a terrace agger from which an ancient track leads straight up to theplateau sighting-point. The identification of this as the continuation issupported by the absence of any road in section in the gas pipeline trenchon the ridge leading up to Harcourt Hill. It is expected that the road continuesthrough Nettlebed down the spur with the Eix villa to Henley.Assuming the agger in Overy Field has been correctly identified, it'pointsto a Roman crossing of the Thame just below the N end of the modern bridge,