, CELTIC AND ROMANO-BRITISH HERTFORDSHIRE 



an arched vault was found in 1799 containing a lead coffin inclosing the 

 skeleton of a youth. Many other bones were found at the same time.'' 

 During the excavations made at the time of the drainage works at St. Albans, 

 about 1885, many cinerary urns and potsherds were found in Mud Lane, 

 now Harley Street, and about 1900 in cutting the road called Kingsbury 

 Avenue from the Verulam Road to Mud Lane a skeleton was found just 

 • under the surface lying north and south with several nails and the outline 

 in the chalk soil of a wooden coffin. Near the head was a coin of 

 Diocletian. Roman urns, apparently cinerary, have been found adjoining 

 Branch Road, Verulam Road, and Church Crescent. In building the houses 

 in Worley Road several cinerary urns were found, and in putting in the 

 drains to ' Fairlawn ' in that road two Roman greenish glass jugs (PI. v) 

 and a patera of Samian ware with the mark ' Advocisi,' apparently parts 

 of a burial, were found.°° 



It is unknown whether there was an amphitheatre outside the walls of 

 Verulamium. Various sites have been suggested for it, including a hollow 

 in the field on the south of King Harry Lane opposite the south corner 01 

 the Roman city, which seems to be the most probable.'^ 



Various earthworks adjoining and near to Verulamium are thought to 

 mark the defences of suburbs, but without excavation it is useless to speculate 

 on the subject. 



Welwyn 



It would appear from the evidence of burials that there was a Late 

 Celtic settlement at Welwyn. Its exact position is not known, but as the 

 Romans usually Romanized British sites it may perhaps be assumed that it 

 was where the Roman settlement stood, namely, at the crossing of the 

 River Mimram by the supposed road from Verulamium to Camulodunum 

 or Colchester. The Late Celtic burials of the first century B.C. recently 

 discovered are clearly those of some important and wealthy family 

 who, it has been suggested by Sir Arthur Evans,^^ were possibly members 

 of the royal house of Cassivellaunus. In any case the existence of such 

 burials at Welwyn implies that it was a favoured spot either of venera- 

 tion if the bodies were brought to it or of wealth if the occupants of the 

 graves had lived in the neighbourhood. The objects associated with two of 

 the burials are of a costly nature (PI. viii) and some of them had undoubtedly 

 been imported from Italy."' 



The Roman site appears to have been on the north-west side of the 

 existing road from Hatfield to Stevenage and to have extended to both sides 

 of the river. Evidence of a house of some size has been found at the 

 rectory and remains of a building near the Grange, while potsherds, coins of 



89 Gent. Mag. 1799, pp. 363-4. The skull was taken to St. Albans Abbey and the lead coffin sold 



to a plumber. r. ah l l ■ 



90 One of the jugs and the patera are now in the Hertford County Museum, St. Albans ; the other jug 



W3S urokcn 



91 There are also hollows in the field behind ' Campbellfield,' Mr. A. McIIwraith's house, and in the 

 field to the north of St. Stephen's churchyard, which have been proposed as the site, but the former and 

 possibly the latter have been gravel-pits within living memory. 



92 Times, 28 Feb. 1911, p. 15. . , t. o » l- . n 1 . r- u- 



93 The burials were fully reported upon by Mr. R. A. Smith, F.S.A. ; see his paper 'On late Celtic 

 Antiquities discovered at Welwyn Herts.' in Jrch. Ixiii ; see also Topographical Index under Welwyn. 



