Roman settlement at Coxwell Road, Faringdon, Oxfordshire

Excavations at Coxwell Road, Faringdon, uncovered a Romano‐British
settlement. The site represents the continuation of the Iron Age to Roman site
investigated in two previous excavations at Coxwell Road immediately to the
north. No certain prehistoric features were found, though small amounts of
residual worked flint and prehistoric pottery were recovered, and an enclosure
ditch producing no datable finds was cut by early Roman features. A complex
of rectilinear, ditched enclosures was established in the mid to late 1st century
AD, and was developed further in the 2nd century, when occupation was at its
most intense. No buildings could be clearly identified within the enclosures,
but a curving gully may have been part of a roundhouse, and a shallow hollow
containing stone rubble could have been a building foundation. Very little
ceramic building material was recovered, suggesting that any buildings did not
have tiled roofs. Evidence for grain production and processing is provided by
a T‐shaped corn‐dryer, and significant amounts of cereal chaff recovered from
samples across the site. Two millstone fragments indicate that a mill lay in the
vicinity. The animal bone assemblage suggests that cattle and sheep were
bred at the site. Small‐scale blacksmithing also seems to have taken place. The
pottery assemblage is fairly utilitarian in character, and other artefacts are
limited in quantity and range, although an enamelled peacock brooch is an
unusual find. The site appears to have been largely abandoned by the end of
the 2nd century, with only a single ditch dated to the late Roman period.