12 



THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



may not be Roman. While researching the 

 background to these items the author was fortunate 

 enough to come across a document in the Salisbury 

 Museum archives which casts further light on their 

 own specimen. 7 It was a letter sent to the Museum 

 Curator in May 1935 by Lt. Col. J. Benett-Stanford 

 of Tisbury explaining that it was he who was 

 responsible for discovering it and not his father. He 

 then went on to report that: 



An old rubbish dealer half way down the street 

 opposite the Museum front door had this stored away 

 at the back of his shop. He told me that when a keeper 

 some years before (this conversation was cl895) was 

 digging out a ferret in the big fence line that runs 

 from Old Sarum to Stratford-sub-Castle he came 

 across this vase and dug it out. 



Given the large banks on either side of the trackway 

 from Old Sarum down to Stratford-sub-Castle 

 (The Portway), which even today are densely filled 

 with rabbit burrows, coupled with the substantial 

 evidence of Roman period occupation in the area 

 close by, the story of this particular find now seems 

 more plausible. 



A number of significant discoveries occurred 

 in the 1960s at Stratford-sub-Castle during road 

 widening and housing development in the area of 

 the Old Post Office (SU 135317) and the new 



Castle Keep Estate (SU 13453 180). The finds were 

 made between November 1965 and January 1966 

 and were deposited in the Salisbury Museum under 

 accession nos 49/1967 and 52/1967 (Table 1, 33 

 and Appendix) . Other finds include a penannular 

 bronze strip bangle found in soil removed from 

 Stratford-sub-Castle (SU 135317) in about 1965 

 and a number of individual coins in addition to 

 those found during the course of excavation (Table 

 1,30, 31,33, 35-37, and 39). 



Aerial Photography 



The evidence from aerial photography has proved 

 extremely valuable. Examination of the English 

 Heritage National Monuments Records collection 

 at Swindon revealed a number of important 

 features. First the line of the Roman road from 

 Old Sarum to Badbury Rings could be picked out 

 on many of the photographs taken over the last 75 

 years. It was in fact discernible on one of the 

 earliest, taken in August 1929, and which came 

 from the Crawford Collection (CCC 8950/ 

 ORACLEE l).The feature was not recognized at 

 the time probably because it was firmly believed 

 that the Roman road to Badbury Rings followed 

 the line of lane called The Portway down into the 



*■*" 



^ 



■*m 



1957 Ex-* 



OLD SARUM 



^ Ui % 



\, n ^ 



W 



'r!!!! ,,!f !<m\]\\\\W 



"»»n, 



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Fig. 3. Stratford-sub-Castle. Plan of crop and parchmarks, and locations of small-scale investigations (after Corney 

 2001, fig. 2. 7 with additions by the author) 



