ROMANO-BRITISH BERKSHIRE 



RUSCOMBE. Fragments of Roman British pottery and an iron knife, now in Reading Museum 

 [Desc. Cat. Reading Mus. pt. i. 47]. 



SANDHURST. Two silver medals, one of Mark Antony the other a consular medal of the Papia 

 family, found in digging behind the Royal Military College [Arch. xix. 98]. 



SHAW CUM DONNINGTON. A large quantity of fragments of Roman pottery, chiefly domestic, 

 were found on a hill at Donnington in the course of excavations to make a garden. Two 

 circles of flint stones with nearly 6 inches of wood ash within them, were uncovered on the 

 same site at a depth of 4 feet from the surface, and were supposed to have been the remains 

 of watch fires or cooking-fires \Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xli. 227; Newbury Dist. Field 

 Club Trans, iv. 189]. It is said that there are Roman tiles in Shaw church [Cooper- 

 King, Hist, of Berks, 48]. 



SINODUN HILL. See Little Wittenham. 



SPEEN. Archaeologists are almost unanimous in identifying the Spinae of the Itinerarium 

 with the village of Speen. Besides the unequivocal evidence of the names, the situation 

 of Speen approximately at the junction of the great Roman roads from Gloucester 

 and Bath, and the close correspondence of its distance from Silchester, 13^ statute 

 miles, with the 15 Roman miles of the Itinerarium between Calleva and Spinae, 

 go far to fix this station within its boundaries. Camden was the first to express this 

 opinion. Tracing the course of the Kennet he says, ' It comes next to Spinae, an old 

 town, mentioned by Antoninus, which still retains its name and is called Spene ; but 

 instead of a town is reduced to a very small village, scarce a mile from Newbury ' [Cough's 

 Camden i. 149]. The majority of his successors have adopted the same view, though 

 two later writers, Dr. Beke [Arch. xv. 179] and Mr. Hedges [Hist, of Wallingford i. 100], 

 have declared themselves against it. In both cases, however, it may be observed that 

 the identification of Spinas was subordinate to another purpose. Dr. Beke, writing to 

 prove that the manor of Coley, Reading, was Calleva, placed Spinae at Thatcham ; whilst 

 Mr. Hedges endeavoured to strengthen his arguments in support of his identification of 

 Calleva with Wallingford by finding it at ' The Slad,' in the parish of Compton, where 

 many undoubtedly Roman antiquities have been discovered. There seems however no good 

 reason for rejecting the opinion that Spinas was at Speen, and though probably not a town, 

 was a posting station. The question next arises to what part of this parish the Roman 

 site may be assigned. A careful examination was made in 1813 by Mr. Leman, F.S.A., 

 who gave his judgment in a MS. now deposited in the library of the Bath Institution, 

 in favour of the house and grounds then occupied by the Rev. George Wyld, now called 

 Speen House, a view which was supported, sixteen years later, by Mr. Rickman, F.C.S., 

 and since then by Mr. Walter Money, F.S.A. 



The Ordnance Survey Department have accepted this identification and so marked 

 it on the 25-in. ordnance map. The site is a fine one standing at the top of a hill nearly 

 400 feet high and commanding the valleys of the rivers Kennet and Lambourn, with 

 further extensive views to the north-east and south. It is probably near to the junction 

 of the Roman roads before referred to, but the exact spot where these roads joined has 

 not been definitely settled It must, however, be confessed that beyond the record of 

 the discovery of a coin of Faustina (A.D. c. 141) [Newbury Dist. Field Club Trans, ii. 258], 

 a denarius of Trajan Decius (A.D. 249-251) [W. Money, Coll. for Hist, of Speen, 19], and 

 a general statement unsubstantiated by details, that pottery and coins have been found, 

 there seems little evidence of a nature which might be expected of the Roman occupation 

 of the site. Rev. J. L. Gibbs, the present owner of Speen House, kindly permitted the 

 examination of his grounds and said that so far as he was aware no Roman antiquities had 

 been found there, and two gardeners who had worked in the grounds for many years, 

 for some time before Mr. Gibbs purchased the property, said they had never seen there 

 any potsherds, coins or other antiquities. It is true that the hill is scarped here on the 

 south side of the garden and shrubbery for about 1,110 feet and on the east side for about 

 600 feet, but further than this there are no indications of defensive earthworks. The 

 25-in. Ordnance Map appears to show a ditch in the field on the north side of the high 

 road parallel to the escarpment on the south of the house, but this is only a natural slope. 

 It is not, indeed, necessary to seek for earthworks at a Roman posting station such as 

 Spinae probably was, but the absence of potsherds, coins, bricks and objects of a like nature 

 almost invariably found on the site of Roman settlements, gives cause for hesitation in 

 assigning the identification of Spinae to the grounds of Speen House. 



Another suggested site for Spinae is on Speen Moor at a place called the Plot, where 



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