Binchester, County Durham
First screened 13 January 2008

What they found

Time Team came to Binchester with a particular interest in uncovering the vicus, the civilian settlement that supported the Roman fort of Vinovia. In the process they uncovered an entire lost landscape.

The vicus was located along the road on either side of the fort. But Time Team also discovered a huge earlier fort, which pushes the history of Vinovia back to the very beginning of the Roman occupation in the north of England.

The early fort
A long trench was cut across a double ditch feature clearly visible from geophysics surveys. This was identified as the ramparts on the perimeter of a fort predating the one whose remains are visible today. The excavation uncovered burning associated with what was probably an oven, which was set into the inner ramparts of the fort to avoid fire risk to timber barracks and other structures. There was then a road behind the ramparts, on the other side of which were the foundations of these timber buildings – only identifiable now by the marks left by timber slots in the earth and rows of nails where the timber itself has rotted away.

One small piece of pottery in particular provided dating evidence that this early fort was in use in the 70s AD. This suggests that the fort may have been associated with Petilius Cerialis, a Roman general who was appointed governor of the province of Britannia in 71 AD until his return to Rome in 74 AD. Cerialis, who had previously taken part in the defeat of Queen Boudicca's rebellion against Roman rule in 60-61 AD, led his legionary forces north to crush the Brigantes tribe of northern England, and according to Time Team Roman expert Guy de la Bédoyère, 'We may have one of the forts from that campaign.'

Street of tombs
The early fort in itself would have been a discovery of national significance. But Time Team also discovered a row of three mausolea – the first to have been found in Britain for 150 years. These were part of what would once have been a grand 'street of tombs', with monuments to the dead lining the road from the fort just as they did on roads leading to Roman towns throughout the empire – including, most famously, on Rome's Appian Way.

Each mausoleum was built to a common Roman design, with a surrounding wall and entrance enclosing a private space containing one or more burials. The grandest of these three monuments contained a burial (the bones had almost completely rotted away in the acid soil) with two pots that were probably placed on top of a coffin and slid off as it rotted. One was intact and almost perfectly preserved, apart from a small chip and a crack down one side. Dating from the late second or early third century, they would originally have contained offerings to the deceased – most likely scented oils or wine.

This tomb also had a beautifully crafted entrance, with a circular slot on which the door was hinged, as well as columns and fine stonework. It was clearly erected for a very important person, possibly a high-ranking officer stationed at the fort.

Other finds
Other finds made on the site included a number of Roman coins (the 'Binchester penies' that historian William Camden wrote about in describing the fort in the 16th century), a variety of pottery, including some fine decorated Samian ware imported from the continent – and a piece of Victorian willow pattern pottery discarded on the site during the Reverend R E Hooppell late 19th-century excavations. Unfortunately, there was little left of the stone walls and other structures that Hooppell found and recorded; the stones must have been taken away and used elsewhere after he finished his work.

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