A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



while the Portway is possibly of a later period. Many other roads 

 have been identified by various writers as Roman, but the present 

 evidence as to them must be considered insufficient to warrant this 

 attribution. 



INDEX 



ABINGDON. In June 1865, some workmen, digging the foundations of a house at the north 

 end of Fore Street, St. Helen's, laid bare some massive foundations, consisting largely 

 of herring-bone masonry. Mr. Akerman, who watched the excavations, sent an account 

 with sketches of the remains disclosed, to the Society of Antiquaries [Proc. Soc. Antiq. 

 (ser. 2), iii. 145, 202], but the place was unfortunately not thoroughly explored. Some 

 earthen vases of a very common description, possibly from the kilns at Sunningwell, a 

 second brass of Trajan, a denarius of Philip, a small brass of Constantine, and very many 

 animal bones were found. Earlier in the same year other Roman relics from this neighbour- 

 hood had been exhibited to the Archaeological Institute [Arch. Journ. xxii. 82, 162]. 

 They were found at Barton farm on the estate of Sir George Bowyer, a mile from Abing- 

 don on the Oxford side, and consisted of Roman pottery, calcined bones and remains. 

 On several occasions human skeletons had been disinterred near this spot during 

 the process of digging for gravel. In a grave here opened by Professor Rolleston were 

 found the unburnt bones of a dog and a horse, whilst fragments of Romano-British pottery 

 occurred through the deposit. It may be noticed that a Romano-British urn and an 

 interment, which were dug up in the Old Abbey grounds at Abingdon, are exhibited in 

 the Reading Museum. The interment consists of a skull and an arm bone with a small 

 pot and patera of fine red ware, with dotted diamonds in white slip, found to the right 

 and left of the skull respectively. 



A few other finds, from Abingdon or its neighbourhood, are recorded. In 1849 a 

 sketch of a bronze figure of the Gaulish Mercury which had been turned up by the plough 

 near the town was laid before the Archaeological Institute [Arch. Journ. ii. 209]. Mention 

 is made of perforated baked clay weights, from 3 to 4 inches in diameter, discovered in 

 a field near Abingdon and exhibited to the British Archaeological Association in 1848 

 [Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass. iv. 404 ; xvi. 34], and the discovery of an unpublished silver 

 coin of Carausius, with R.S.R. in the exergue, found in the neighbourhood, was com- 

 municated to the Numismatic Society [Num. Chron. (new ser.) i. 161] in 1861. There 

 is also in the British Museum a bronze brooch of the early La Tene type from Abingdon. 

 In conclusion a passing reference may perhaps be permitted to the mediaeval legend 

 [Abingdon Chron. (Rolls ser.) i. 6, 7 ; ii. 278] telling of crosses and images belonging to 

 an early British Christianity dug up here in later days, for though it has no historical 

 value it is not without its interest as an old tradition connecting the town with the 

 Emperor Constantine and his mother. 



ALDERMASTON. Cinerary urns found in Box Meadow, one of black earth, another of coarse 

 grey pottery, the others not described [Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass. xvi. 324 ; Newbury Dili. Field 

 Club Trans, ii. 126]. 



APPLEFORD. Fragments of a light brown urn found beside two skeletons in Appleford fields 

 [Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass. i. 309 ; xvi. 33]. Circles and square enclosures resembling those 

 at Long Wittenham but unexplored in a field south of the church [Berks Bucks and Oxon 

 Arch. Journ. July 1898, p. 44]. 



APPLETON. Grey Upchurch vase found below the bed of the Thames and now in the British 

 Museum. 



ASHBURY. From Ashdown Park bronze bracelets and brooches somewhat of a British type, 

 now exhibited in the British Museum. An iron chain and a few much corroded coins 

 found about a mile from Wayland Smith's cave, in digging stones for the road [Journ. 

 Brit. Arch. Ass. iv. 404]. A Roman steelyard said to have been found with Roman coins 

 at Lambourn End near Ashbury about 1888 [Newbury Dist. Field Club Trans, iv. 204], 

 Coins of Domitian, Marcus Aurelius, Claudius II, Constantine the Great, Constans and 

 Valentinian I (A.D. 81-375), Samian and other pottery, mullers, horse-shoes, querns, 

 rings, spindle-whorls and fibulae from the neighbourhood [Ibid.]. 



ASTON TIRROLD or ASTON UPTHORPE. Third brass coins of the Tetrici (A.D. 267-74) an< ^ 

 Claudius Gothicus (A.D. 268-70). Hedges (Hist, of Wallingford i. 143) gives these coins 

 as found ' near Aston.' 



202 



