Cirencester: The Mosaic at the Bottom of the Garden
9 January 2000

Around 1,700 years ago, Corinium – modern day Cirencester – was the second most important city in Roman Britain after Londinium. Originating as a Roman fort and adjacent settlement alongside the important Roman highway, Ermine Street, by about 300 AD it had developed into a bustling, wealthy city, complete with basilica, forum, shops, high-status housing and all the other attributes of a thriving provincial capital. It has been said that you can't put a spade into the ground in Cirencester today without unearthing relics of the Roman era. Yet there is still much that is unknown about Roman Corinium and what lies beneath the later town.

Time Team was drawn to Cirencester by the opportunity to excavate in the gardens of a number of properties in Chester Street, which lies close to the line of Ermine Street and near to the centre of old Corinium. At 56 Chester Street, Joc Matchington and her two children had been intrigued by an 1875 Ordnance Survey map referring to a 'Site of Tessellated Pavement' at the bottom of their garden. At number 50, Chloe Gilyead and her sister had uncovered two, possibly Roman, coins in their garden as part of a school project. And at The Firs, a large building at the southern end of Chester Street, a great deal of evidence of a substantial Roman building or complex on the site had been discovered by a former resident during Victorian times. Thomas Bravender, a Victorian engineer and amateur archaeologist, produced a catalogue of his finds, which included coins, pottery, glass and bronze relics as well as substantial fragments of elaborately carved columns, capitals and pillars. These included one dedicated to the cult of Jupiter, leading to speculation that this could have been the site of a Roman temple.

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Time Team's investigation uncovered a number of exciting finds, among which was a bronze and gilt brooch, a spoon, a glass gaming counter and a bone dice. A large-scale dig in a car park adjacent to The Firs (the biggest hole dug in Cirencester for 20 years, according to one local archaeological expert) also revealed remnants of a substantial wall built on an east-west axis, leading to speculation that this could have been the site of a Romano-British Christian church – if so, only the second ever uncovered in these islands. But it was the discovery of the mosaic at the bottom of Joc Matchington's garden that was perhaps the most thrilling. The first mosaic to have been uncovered in Cirencester for 25 years – and the first that Time Team has uncovered in all of its programmes – it would have been a corridor floor in a house of very high status. Not the sort of thing that everyone can expect to find under their flower beds!

The Team also examined evidence for the existence of another Roman road bisecting Ermine Street, using geophysics surveys to try to determine its exact location. As a result of the investigation, a number of new pieces could be put into place in the archaeologists' jigsaw map of old Corinium.

Resources

Corinium Museum
Park Street
Cirencester
Tel: 01285 655611
A welcoming and airy museum with one of the finest collections of antiquities from Roman Britain, including various mosaics and the famous Septimus Stone, featured on Time Team, which records the restoration of a column to Jupiter by a governor called Septimus.

Bignor Roman Villa
Bignor
Pulborough
West Sussex RH20 1PH
Tel: 01798 869259.
One of the less well-known Romano-British sites open to the public, the villa has a marvellous collection of mosaics. It is six miles north of Arundel, signposted from the A29 and the A285.

Futher reading

Roman Gloucestershire by Alan McWhirr (Sutton Publishing, 1991) paperback £6.95
A summary of the evidence for the Roman towns of Cirencester, Bath and Gloucester, as well as for the rich rural villas in the region.

Ancient Mosaics by Roger Ling (British Museum) paperback £12.99
Traces the history of mosaics and their regional variations from Hellenistic to early Christian times, including mosaic techniques and their relationship to ancient interior design.

Geometric Patterns from Roman Mosaics by Robert Field (Tarquin Publications) paperback £2.95
A compact and interesting guide.

The Landscape of Roman Britainby Ken and Petra Dark (Sutton Publishing, 1997) paperback £10.99
A history of Roman Britain, considering the effects of human activity on the landscape, with particular attention paid to the Iron-Age background.

Roman Britain by Martin Millett (English Heritage, 1995) paperback £15.99
Making full use of the archaeological material available, this introductory study of four centuries of Roman presence in Britain explores the central themes of daily life, laying particular emphasis on the social, economic and cultural history.

Vitruvius: On Architecture, translated by Frank Granger (Harvard University Press) 1996, hardback £12.95
Studied by architects from the Renaissance to the present, Vitruvius's book is an incredible DIY handbook ranging from recipes for plaster and paint to the aesthetic use of marble and the construction of siege engines. An invaluable reference for Time Team cameos and a guide to the styles and means of construction of Roman buildings that survive today.

Life in Roman Britain by Joan Alcock (Batsford/English Heritage, 1996) paperback £15.99
An excellent social history of life in Roman Britain covering food and drink, clothing, recreation, administration and religion. Richly illustrated.

An Atlas of Roman Britain by Barri Jones and David Mattingly (Blackwell, 1993) paperback £15.99
An amazing accumulation of archaeological evidence has been used to map every aspect of Roman life on a countrywide scale, including the distribution of Roman forts, towns, villas, potteries and quarries. Lots of additional plans and useful descriptions on each topic.

The Finds of Roman Britain by Guy de la Bédoyère (Batsford, 1989, paperback £14.99)
Written in non-specialist English, this is a well-illustrated guide to the various Roman finds from sites across the country, placing them within their social context.

Roman Britain by T W Potter (British Museum Press, 1983) paperback £6.95
The four centuries during which the Roman presence in Britain rose, flourished and declined changed every aspect of life: industry, trade, government, the arts and learning. This book gives an illustrated outline of the period.

Roman Britain by Tim Potter and Catherine Johns ('Exploring the Roman World' series, British Museum Publications, 1992) hardback £19.95
A survey of the effects of Roman culture on Britain and its people, by two British Museum curators. Includes evidence from the latest archaeological discoveries, including the Vindolanda writing tablets and the Thetford and Snettisham treasures, as well as a gazetteer of noteworthy sites to visit.

Websites and other resources

This website contains links to other websites which are not under the control of and are not maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.

Time Team has carried out a number of other investigations into Roman sites in Britain, details of which can be found in the Archive section of this website. These include the 1997 Live dig on the site of a Roman villa at Turkdean, in Gloucestershire. As well as a detailed report on the dig, our special live website included a chronology of Roman Britain, a range of Roman recipes and other links and resources.

Time Team returned to Turkdean as part of its 1999 series to see if they could make sense of the spectacular geophysics results that they had not had time to investigate during the live programme. That same series also included a programme on a Roman bath house found at Beauport Park, East Sussex.

Elsewhere on the web, at www.sys.uea.ac.uk/Research/ResGroups/JWMP/CaistorRomanTown/crtp1.html you can take a virtual tour around the Roman town of Caistor, in Norfolk, which, like Corinium, was a thriving regional capital 1,700 years ago. It is unique in never having been disturbed by later buildings.

Another virtual tour, this time of a Roman villa, can be enjoyed at www.dhm.de/museen/stein/stein_e.html. The villa, in the commune of Hechingen, in Germany, had lain undiscovered under the forest for 1,700 years before its discovery in 1973. The site, which also contains a report on current excavations, is presented in English as well as German.

At the excellent www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6946/rome.html you can not only take a virtual tour of ancient Rome, but can also consult a dictionary of mythology, delve into Roman history and the Latin language, and take your pick of a variety of other links to sites concerned with the ancient world.

A good timeline and other resources on ancient Rome can be found at www.exovedate.com/ancient_timeline_one.html.

The Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics, at www.asprom.org/index.html, offers a wide variety of materials relating to mosaics in Britain, including their design, construction, and the buildings in which they have been discovered. There are also articles providing an insight into the relationship between mosaics and art, architecture, religion and history. ASPROM is currently more than half way through a project to catalogue and publish details of every Roman mosaic in Britain, further details of which can be found on their website.

At www.pyrrha.demon.co.uk/index.html there is information on how a couple with classical enthusiasms made a Roman mosaic and garden. The site also contains an introduction to the Latin language, poetry and how to read Latin inscriptions.

The Mosaic Workshop at www.mosaicworkshop.com supplies materials and organises courses on mosaic-making. They are based at Unit B, 443-449 Holloway Road, London N7 6LJ (tel 020 7263 2997).

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