WTHSoc February 2023 Meeting Details

 

Date - 24 Feb 2023
Time - 20:00 (Doors open 19:30)
Location - Weston Turville Village Hall
Title - "Fleet Marston - Excavation Results"
Speaker – Edward Biddulph
Entrance - £2 members, £3 visitors

 

“Fleet Marston - excavating a Roman town”

Edward Biddulph

Meeting on Friday 24^th Feb 2023

copyright COPA

The Roman roadside settlement or small town at Fleet Marston north-west of Aylesbury was situated at the intersection of several routeways that took travellers into the countryside and on to major towns. Its position at this important crossroads, together with hundreds of coins and other finds, potentially identifies the settlement as a marketplace, stopping place, or administrative centre with extensive trade connections. Recent excavations on the route of HS2 and, before that, at Berryfields, have shed much light on this previously little-known settlement, as well as attracted worldwide media attention, with stories of decapitated skeletons and preserved Roman eggs.

                                                            copyright COPA

 In this talk, Edward will describe the results of the excavations on the HS2 route by COPA (Cotswold Oxford Pre-Construct Archaeology), which were carried out on behalf of Fusion Joint Venture HS2 Enabling Works Contractor, and at Berryfields, which was investigated by Oxford Archaeology for the Berryfields Consortium.

Edward is a Senior Project Manager with Oxford Archaeology. He is the author or co-author of several monographs, including “Berryfields”, “Iron Age and Roman Salt Making in the Thames Estuary”, “Cirencester Before Corinium”, and “A Bathhouse, Settlement, and Industry on Roman Southwark’s North Island”, and many reports and papers for archaeological journals. Other publications include, less predictably, “Double-O Dining: A James Bond Cookbook”.