The three trenches in the arena proved very disappointing! Scraping off the gravel revealed the natural bedrock almost immediately. From the results of earlier excavations, we knew that the level of the arena floor had been cut down below the natural ground surface by the Roman engineers who built the monument, but we had hoped that some areas of subsequent build up had survived. We were wrong.
Indeed, it looks as if the Ministry of Works had shaved off part of the exposed sandstone bedrock to make a level surface onto which they could lay the gravel. They showed even less respect for the Roman drains: the peripheral drain had been completely replaced by a concrete feature, while the axial drain had fared similarly badly. Worse still, there was a herringbone pattern of concrete land drains, inserted to improve the poor drainage of the arena.
 |
 |
| Cover slabs on the outer drain, Trench III | The axial drain, showing broken cover slabs, Trench II |
 |
 |
| The modern outer drain, Trench III | One of the land drains, Trench III |
However, there was one place, where the Roman drain had been diverted away from the centre of the arena, where it did survive. There was no trace of stone lining, but we do not know if it was originally stone lined at this point. It had survived because the Ministry of Works’ drainage engineers had simply carried the line of the Roman axial drain straight on across the arena.
 |
Two features were found in Trench I, cut through the material laid by the Ministry of Works to prepare the site for its gravel floor. They consisted of identical shallow cuts, resembling postholes for substantial posts. Their fills were not very recent (I’d estimate at least ten years old), but they are later twentieth century, as shown by the finds. They look as if they were meant to take posts the thickness of telegraph poles... What they were for is anybody’s guess. |
 |
There were a few other ancient features that survived, in a severely truncated form. In Trench I, we found a posthole that strongly resembled those interpreted in the 1960s as belonging to a central platform in the arena. The axial drain had supposedly been diverted west, around the edge of the platform, but this posthole lay to the west. |
This is very curious, as the drain appeared to underlie a path leading to the platform (something that apparently caused Hugh Thompson, its excavator, some confusion). If the posthole we found belongs with the ‘platform’ (which its size and form would suggest), why does it lie on the other side of the drain? Why divert the drain at all, if it still ran under part of the platform? We need to investigate whether the ‘platform’ really is a Roman feature (could it, for instance, be a late or post-Roman building?), as it seems to be without parallel.
 |
In Trench II, we relocated a pit that had originally been excavated in the 1960s. When first encountered, it contained a reused fragment of a Roman column, laid on its side and with an iron bar sticking up from the centre. The interpretation of the feature caused Hugh Thompson further difficulties, but he concluded that it might be a way-marker alongside the path to the ‘platform’. |
We found that the bottom 100 mm or so of the pit had survived. Curiously, there was a ‘shadow’ of the column fragment visible in the pit (just visible in the photograph to the left). The ‘shadow’ was filled with the material that had been spread over the arena floor before the gravel went down c 1972, but the pit fill looked like an archaeological deposit. What I find disconcerting is that the published photograph of the pit appears to show it completely emptied in the 1960s. Was the column put back and the pit allowed to silt up? Did the Ministry of Works subsequently remove it? Where is it now? |
 |
Understanding the results we obtained from the trenches in the Arena is going to take some time. We need to rethink the interpretation of some of the features from the 1960s excavation. We also have information to help us in the management of the site: the covers of the modern axial drain had been broken for a long time, perhaps almost since they were laid in the early 1970s. The drain was not working properly, which may explain why the arena floods after only a brief storm!