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Iron-Making at the Chesters Villa, Woolaston, Gloucestershire: Survey and Excavation 1987—91

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

M.G. Fulford  and
J.R.L. Allen
M.G. Fulford
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading
J.R.L. Allen
Affiliation:
Postgraduate Research Institute for Sedimentology, University of Reading
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Extract

The Chesters villa is situated midway between Chepstow and Lydney on the right bank of the Severn Estuary (FIG. 1). The residential quarters (centred on ST 59709870) lie on the shoulder of the Kidderminster Terrace (sands, gravels), about 250 m from the modern shore between the 11 and 16 m contours, and face south across the estuary. Between 1932 and 1935 C. Scott Garrett carried out a series of excavations, mostly in the field known as Lower Chesters south of the railway line. These revealed, on the eastern side, a residential range with a bath-block at its southern end. From this a courtyard wall was defined on three sides, with traces of structures along the south, and a subdivided, rectangular building at the northern end of the western wall. No evidence was found of a northern range, although rubble spreads on the surface of the field, and now aerial photography, make it clear that such a range existed. Indeed, its size, coupled with the incidence of mosaic tesserae in the ploughsoil, suggest that it was the most elaborate quarter of the villa. The cropmark evidence for this range is plotted on FIG. 1. Apart from one reference to iron slag as a ‘material which can be found almost anywhere on the site', the excavations provided no evidence of the role that iron-making might have played in the economy of the villa.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 23 , November 1992 , pp. 159 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © M.G. Fulford and J.R.L. Allen 1992. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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